Song Binbin Apologizes to the Teachers and Classmates Hurt in the Cultural Revolution, Weeps Several Times

Today, at the Female Middle School Affiliated with Beijing Normal University, Song Binbin solemnly apologized to the teachers and classmates that harmed in the Cultural Revolution. This is yet another important instance of repentance following the apology by Chen Xiaolu. Song Binbin is one of the “symbols” of student leaders in the Cultural Revolution, her apology an indicator of significance. According to reports, Song was very emotional, crying several times.

Regarding her past deeds, I already earnestly read them on Wikipedia before it was blocked [in China].

liu51410 [网易福建省福州市网友]：

People always say nice things before they’re about to die.

网易广东省中山市手机网友 ip：125.92.*.*:

With this kind of person, with the deep suffering she has inflicted on the counter, with the great wounds she has inflicted on the people, even being shot dead a hundred times would not satisfy one’s anger!

122193190 [网易上海市浦东新区手机网友]：

Learn from history, may the dead rest in peace, may the living solemnly remember, may history not be repeated.

网易内蒙古网友 [T打倒五0毛反动派C]：

1966 August, reports of the Red Guards beating people to death reached Mao and he opposed the “Emergency Appeal” to curb the beatings, instructing there to be no interference. Encouraged, the Red Guards set off a Five Black Categories killing spree. In Changping county, slogans to destroy root and branch, to spare women but not men, were raised, with even infant boys just a few months old being beating to death and communes launching killing competitions. 324 people were killed in total in Daxing county between August 29th to 31st. Amongst them, the oldest was 80 years old, the youngest only 38 days, and known as the 831 Incident. In Macun, a grandparent and grandchild pair was buried alive. When the perpetrator shoveled dirt on their bodies, the little child held in [the grandparent’s] arms said: “Grandma, something is in my eyes.” The elderly woman said helplessly: “It’ll be gone shortly.”

T打倒五0毛反动派C [网易内蒙古网友]： (responding to above, adding to his own comment)

Although it has been over 30 years, every time I recall these ugly things that happened around us, I always find it difficult to restrain my hatred and sorrow. Hatred, because the perpetrators were also members of the Chinese people, and they have brought shame to the entire people [nationality/ethnicity]. What more, to this day, they have not gotten the punishment they deserve. Sorrow, because people’s lives could be so easily deprived, and because who can guarantee that the next one would not be oneself? What more, to this day, not a single perpetrator from that time has come forth to apologize or express remorse.

If we cannot punish evil, how can we talk about the stability of society; if we won’t express remorse, then there is no possibility of progress.

What perplexes me the most is the one nagging question: Are we such an ugly people [nationality/ethnicity]?

网易北京市手机网友 ip：110.172.*.*:

Should apologize, even if she too was a victim!

网易重庆市手机网友 ip：113.205.*.*:

Pretentious from beginning to end, why didn’t she do it sooner? Why feign apologizing now? If apologies were enough, why make laws at all?

网易广东省深圳市手机网友 ip：221.179.*.*:

Should be sentenced [punished].

网易河南省手机网友 ip：117.136.*.*:

Back from abroad.

Are apologies enough? Are you familiar with Song Binbin (and Chen Xiaolu)?

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5000 years of history

Sofa

Germandude

Be happy that it’s 2014. In past times, that might’ve been confiscated.

mr.wiener

Ownership of a sofa would make you a landlord. He’d be in serious shit.

ScottLoar

This is an extraordinary confession, extraordinary because although a luminary of the movement she was only one of a million. When tens and tens of thousands likewise come forward in acts of contrition then perhaps this shameful episode can be known and those former Red Guards reconciled with their past.

Today I am able to face the teachers and their families of that time to say what I have wanted to say for many years yet did not say, because I feel I have been wronged, yet the pain is of no account, most important is what kind of future will a nation set upon, and to a large extent it depends on how she (the nation) faces her own past. If past tragedy is forgotten and past mistakes forgotten, then tragedy could probably reprise, error could probably recur. Without the truth there can be no looking back on the matter. Likewise, without looking back on the matter it is hard to approach the truth. I hope that all those during the Cultural Revolution who did wrong things, and harmed teachers and students, are able to face themselves, think upon the Cultural Revolution, seek forgiveness, and reach reconciliation. I believe this is the hope of all.

I wish to say again, I’m sorry!

Again, I thank the teachers, I thank our alma mater.

Paul Schoe

Thanks for the quotation and translation

ScottLoar

Thanks for acknowledging the quotation and translation.

Nathan Samuel Hazlett

And the tyrant responsible for this dark period of Chinese history- Mao Zedong- is still venerated! None of this would have happened without Mao’s approval- he stirred the Red Guards into hysteria and knew full well what was happening. The Red Guards done evil things but remember they were a bit like Hitler Youth- brainwashed. Except that in Germany, Hitler is rightly vilified and remembered for what he was- a callous dictator. The CPP by continuing to promote propaganda and the personality cult around Mao are effectively condoning his crimes and acting as his apologist. China will never move forward until the tyrant known as Mao Zedong is remembered in a much more honest manner. The present situation is one of a continued personality cult. It will be interesting to see if this comment is censored.

Germandude

Why would Chinasmack censor your comment?

mr.wiener

I’m certainly not going to.

Germandude

I assumed so. It was just a rhetorical question, as I think cS censorship is not existent/almost not existent. Certainly not for what Nathan S H posted.

Stefan Xu

One of the biggest reasons Mao is liked in China is because founded modern China. Chinese say no Mao no modern China.

Modern China? That was the doing of Deng. Not that illiterate fool of a peasant.

Alexander

Mao industrialized China, Deng Xiao Ping modernized and commercialized China. Mao’s industrialization of China caused millions to die in famines because he took agricultural workers and made them industrial workers which resulted in food shortages.

PaulGillett

Hi Alexander, your comment isn’t exactly right. Though poor policy was the cause of the famine, it was not the policy of taking “agricultural workers and making them industrial workers”, there was much more to it that that. Actually, there were policies forcing MORE people work on the farms.

If you want an in depth analysis of the policies that lead to the tragedy, I suggest you check out two books: “Tombstone” by Yang Jisheng and “Mao’s Great Famine” by Frank Dikötter.

Alexander

Hi Paul,
It seems you got it backwards. If you do some research you can clearly see it state things like this:
“The more incidious consequence of the backyard blastfurnaces and other

nonagricultural projects of the Great Leap Forward was that they took labor

away from food production and led to a shortfall in food.” (San Jose State University)

“In addition to the decline in food production due to the diversion of effort

away from agriculture there was losses in food production because of the

erroneous policies promoted by the State.” (San Jose State University)

“The campaign was led by Mao Zedong and aimed to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a communist society through rapid industrialization and collectivization. The campaign caused the Great Chinese Famine.”

“Yang Jisheng, a long-time communist party member and a reporter for the official Chinese news agency Xinhua, puts the blame squarely on Maoist
policies, such as diverting agricultural workers to steel production
instead of growing crops, and exporting grain at the same time.”

So it seems you are confused. Thanks. Talk to you later, I have other things to do now.

PaulGillett

This is not a comment for Alexander, but for anyone interested in learning about what happened.

Alexander has done a great job at taking quotes out of context. As I mentioned above, Tombstone offers a detailed analysis of the policies that resulted in famine.

Nobel Prize winning economist Amartay Sen has shown that famines are not always the result of lack of food, as Alexander is trying to state. (Less workers = less food, is that right Alexader?)

In fact, there was not a shortage of food during the famine. What happened is junior officials over reported food yeilds to please their seniors and advance their carreers. This resulted in an increase in grain taken from the country side. The grain was moved into the city, where in many cases, it would rot and go to waste in warehouses.

It was Mao’s “policy of extracting an increasing percentage of grain from the countryside that caused millions of deaths.” (Tombstone)

miomeinmio

Thank you.

Alexander

No, that’s not what I am saying. What I am saying is what the information states. Its not my info its what other people have written in scholarly research. Now stop wasting my time, it seems everyone has a PhD here in Chinese history and instead of just commenting and enjoying the discussion board people want to suddenly turn it into some kind of thesis debate. Waste of time, enjoy the discussion board and don’t be too critical.

miomeinmio

Wow. Your scholarship is clearly flawed. Can you provide sources besides “generic university”? Like specific papers? I’m sure San Jose State publishes a lot of papers.

What am I saying? I should probably Google search these quotes verbatim, that’s obviously where you got them.

Alexander

I got it from a research paper at that university. So it is scholarly journal. Anyways thanks for butting into the conversation whoever you are. I don’t have time to waste looking things up for you, do your own research. You can google yourself to an orgasm……

ElectricTurtle

Then there’s Taiwan, which has a higher standard of living throughout the whole country with no Mao at all. Chinese people didn’t need Mao to make China better, and indeed he didn’t do a very good job of it.

Brian227

The post-war rulers of Taiwan had several advantages over their mainland equivalents – the ability to saturate the place with millions of soldiers and regime loyalists who’d no choice but to make a go of their new lives and who’d been permanently stripped from their clan loyalties.

In the sense that without the KMT fleeing headlong for the island Taiwan would still be a provincial backwater, it owes its current success to the CCP if not Mao himself.

Edward_Crowley

And HK and Macau, which while not technically countries do quite well. I do believe Macau has some of the best healthcare and longevity in the world.

Alexander

And Macau also scored on I think it was Forbes list of countries with highest life expectancy. I believe they came in 2nd and Hong Kong was 10th.

Edward_Crowley

Yeah, that is true. Puts a bit of a dint in the ccps claims eh?

Alexander

Yes, very true, but to be fair, any country that big or with a population of that size is going to face some challenges. I often times wish the British Empire was still around instead of simply the United Kingdom, but I suppose it is much easier to manage that way.

Edward_Crowley

Cecil Rhodes actually had a proposition which never came to fruition which was to unite the english speaking countries of the former empire, into the imperial federation, even including the USA. It didn’t go through and the commonwealth was formed. All empires go through this, Russians seem to still find it particularly hard to accept the breakup of the USSR, even Gorbachev wanted to keep the union but without communism as an ideology

lienlaopei

it is not ‘modern’ china, but ‘new’ china you’re referring to. but new doesn’t mean modern, instead of making china modern, the cultural revolution stagnated china for 30 what years.

yangreen

Dr. Sun Yat Sen helped found modern China. the communist party plunged it back into the dark ages.

yangsiyuan

A lot of people have recanted their Maoist ideologies. The CCP doesn’t want the Mao type of extremism anymore. Even recently the CCP told people on his birthday to not go all out. Plus after his death his gang of four was captured and punished. A lot of them hate Mao, so you can’t say that he is as venerated as he was 60 years ago.

Dr Sun

maybe that’s because the CPC is still running the show, but if ever sit down and talk to ordinary Chinese people you wont find that much admiration for Mao.or the CPC.

I agree with you on Mao being a tyrant however you said he’s venerated so, I am thinking you didn’t read the comments above and if you are currently living in China I suggest you should discuss this matter in Chinese, with Chinese who can be honest about it.

Nathan I think you know this already but in China “Face” has a lot to do with everything, so there’s a big chance you might have only heard good things about him when in reality Chinese have a lot to say about everything but they rather keep us foreigners in the dark when it comes to politics… or everything.

Yes, the CCP is like a cult but certainly not to Mao. He’s just the face ;)

sfphoto1

NSH:

Let’s take a look at Mao’s Revolution:

1. Anti-Rightist Campaigns: lots of killings of landlords, capitalists, officials and all reactionaries with ties to the former Fascist regime.

2. Great Leap Forward: lots of deaths by famine and starvation due to collectivized agriculture and peasant industrialism.

Let’s say Mao was stupid by launching the Great Leap Forward. Not to belittle famine but that disaster was not INTENTIONAL. So Mao can be rightly accused of STUPIDITY. But CRUELTY? That ‘s 1). and 3). as those are political acts that Mao was directly responsible for that led to the INTENTIONAL killings of millions.

The question then becomes:

1. Are those killings morally justifiable? NO.

2. Are those killings politically necessary?

If your answer to the second question is NO, then History would have to condemn the French Revolutionaries for butchering the French Aristocrats and the Union Army for slaughtering the Confederate Army and for destroying the Old South. Viewed strictly from a non-ideological lens, Mao’s Revolution was a peasant uprising which led to the violent overthrow of the oppressor class. Why just blame Mao when it was the impoverished and semi-literate MASSES who were killing the rich and corrupt landlords, compradors, officials and capitalists of the defeated Fascist regime? Are you going to condemn the MASSES as well?

The Westerners commenting on this website typing on their computers living in their petty bourgeoisie existence have ABSOLUTELY no idea at all what being oppressed in feudal China was like. Pearl S. Buck, an American who lived in China knew what it was like. She wrote a book about her experience in China entitled “The Good Earth” for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature. Even Pearl S. Buck wrote that the Chinese peasant class would one day “find a way” to achieve justice from their oppressor class.

And that’s what they did.

Revolutions are never pretty. But equating Mao’s Revolution with Hitler’s Nazi Genocide is like saying performing surgery with a knife is similar to sadistic mutilation with a chainsaw. Both acts require spilling lots of blood; but the former has a political purpose while the latter is pure evil.

sfphoto1

And the tyrant responsible for this dark period of Asian history- Emperor Hirohito- is still venerated! None of this would have happened without Hirohito’s approval- he directed the Imperial Japanese Army and knew fully well what was happening. The Imperial Japanese Army did evil things but remember they were a bit like the Nazi SS- brainwashed. Except that in Germany, Hitler is rightly vilified and remembered for what he was- a callous dictator. Japanese Prime Minister Abe by continuing to promote propaganda and the worship of 14 convicted Class-A War Criminals at the Yasukuni Shrine are effectively condoning their War Crimes and acting as their apologist. Japan will never move forward until the tyrant known as Emperor Hirohito is remembered in a much more honest manner. The present situation is one of a continued personality cult. It will be interesting to see if this comment is censored.

Countless other examples of atrocities exist, yet so few came forward to apologize, why? Because their person who started it was never persecuted

mr.wiener

In the end they blamed it on Madam Mao and the rest of the gang of four and rather awkwardly said Mao was right %80 of the time.
As to the chances of mass apologies….? I wouldn’t hold my breath.
4000+ years of civilization and the aspirations of a generation pissed up against the wall in one decade of madness. I’ll not say what I truly feel about Mao….but it is very hard to find the good in what he ultimately did and was responsible for.

narsfweasels

“4000+ years of civilization” while I’ll accept that the geographic region known now as “The People’s Republic of China” has 4,000 years or more of history (along with the rest of the world) I always have a hard time swallowing the supposed “fact” of 4,000 years of “civilisation” every time I look out of the window.

sfphoto1

Ever heard of Xi’an?

Germandude

Ok, but I think it’s fair to say that the burden for the single person is simply higher.
What I mean is: While the German government post-war could apologize for the atrocities that the 3rd Reich comitted, this is a much more difficult step to be done by single persons.
Imagine an 18 year old boy being drafted into the German army during war times, let’s say, a few months prior to the attack on Russia. That guy might have been loyal to the Nazis and wanted to seek “an adventure of war” or he was considering himself to be “an unlucky soul” that has to go risk his life.
No matter what. In the frontline, things are easy: Same uniform as yours? Friendly. Different uniform than yours? Enemy! Shoot! Or he will kill you.
It’s no secret that war is blunting down people, especially young guns in the age of feeling invincible. You can see that in WW 1, WW 2, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Iraq Wars and any other conflict in the world. It’s greatly documented.

Anyways, back to the single person’s need to apologize. After having risked his life many times in combat, having created a simple despise on the enemy because of the horrible scenes seen in battle, his superior tells him to shoot on a group of women and children.
It’s easy to say that you wouldn’t shoot. It’s easy for me to say that I wouldn’t shoot. However, at that time? With all the repressions and the hate indoctrinated into the soldiers?
I don’t know.
Now Germany lost the war and for some it was the wake-up call that past propaganda was all a lie, just like Song Binbin in this article might have figured out. Then live with your actions that at the time of comitting, might have been right, or the way to survive the day yourself.
I don’t take the right to judge on these people if an apology was made or not, because I recognize that “survival of the fittest” pays a huge role under those kind of regimes.
I respect that she had the guts to apologize and show her face in public for that.

PS: With my example of the 18 year old, by no means do I want to defend war crimes or those sadistic assholes that served as political soldiers or guards of the concentration camps or death squads. Those were majorly volunteers on the job and deserve any kind of disrespect and anger.

sfphoto1

Trying to equate Mao’s People’s Revolution with Hitler’s Nazi Genocide is a complete fallacy because the former were Acts of Revolution carried out by the People while the latter were Acts of War organized by an Imperialistic State. However violent and horrifying the deeds committed by the masses during Mao’s People’s Revolution, history could rationalize those acts as a political necessity and thus a necessary evil. In contrast, Hitler’s and Hirohito’s Imperialist Wars of Aggression could never be rationalized on political grounds and thus are unnecessary evils. All violence and horrors of Wars and Revolutions can never be justified on the basis of morality but could be rationalized on political grounds. Indeed, that was the political rationale behind the military decision to bomb the cities of Japan and Germany which led to millions of civilian deaths. Those Acts of War were a necessary evil to stop the greater evil which is Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

Germandude

I cannot follow you. How did my post regarding the guilt of single persons within evil regimes lead you to write your post?
Also, in Hitler’s eyes, his actions were necessary (and not evil) to free Germany from the strings of the peace contract of Versailles.

It’s all a matter of your viewpoint then I guess?!

sfphoto1

And what were the crimes that Mao was guilty of to make him as “EVIL” as Hitler? Liberating impoverished peasants from centuries of feudal oppression? Attacking reactionary remnants of the defeated Fascist regime? Exhorting students to defeat counter-revolutionaries within Society, Party and State? So a former Red Guard apologizes because her conscience bothers her. And that implies the CCP should do what? Demonize Mao which the West has been doing for the past 60 years?

Demonizing Mao by linking him with Hitler only serves to trivialize Hitler’s Nazi Genocide. There is no comparison between what this former Red Guard did and what a Nazi SS officer is guilty of. And Mao is as “EVIL” as Hitler because of HOOLIGANISM?

Germandude

Demonizing Mao by linking him with Hitler only serves to trivialize Hitler’s Nazi Genocide.

LOL, right. I don’t know which agenda you are running, but read my first post, which I directed at mr.wiener. I was pointing out the fact that people are easy to control/manipulate by fear and propaganda.

I then transfered the pressure on single persons on the lady in this article, because I believe that she has experienced a comparable situation through brainwashing/propaganda and that she, out of her eyes, did everything right at that time and now, after times have changed, had the guts (and I mean it in a positive way) to apologize because (at least I think and hope so), she realized her wrong-doings.

THEN comes you, jumping in by telling me

Trying to equate Mao’s People’s Revolution with Hitler’s Nazi Genocide is a complete fallacy because the former were Acts of Revolution carried out by the People while the latter were Acts of War organized by an Imperialistic State.

Well, no shit Einstein. Thanks for clarifying that to me. I would’ve died stupid without you.

And that implies the CCP should do what?

Well, as a start, allowing different opinions without the fear of punishment for that. Then, we’ll go on from there.

Consider this my last reply to you on this topic because I don’t understand your agenda pulling me into a discussion where you mix up things into shit I never talked about.

sfphoto1

Agenda? The people funding this website has one but not me. It just struck me that almost everyone here (presumably Westerners) were demonizing Mao and linking him to Hitler. Mao made the mistake of INCITING the Red Guards to expose counter-revolutionaries within the Party. So CCP officials also became victims of the fanatical Red Guards. But neither Mao nor the CCP should be held accountable for the violence of the Red Guards because they didn’t organize those beatings.

But the commentators here wants the CCP to apologize. To whom? To the West? And for what? For becoming victims of the fanatical Red Guards? And this alleged confession of a former Red Guard somehow absolves her of guilt because she was allegedly brainwashed. By whom? By Mao? So that Mao should be held accountable for a bunch of HOOLIGANS beating people up while reciting slogans from Mao’s Little Red Book?

The Cultural Revolution began at the height of the Cold War, right at the onset of the Vietnam War. Mao probably became paranoid (and rightly so) that counter-revolutionaries were plotting to subvert his People’s Revolution. And that’s probably why he launched the Cultural Revolution which went out of control. Why didn’t Mao stop it? Because he became senile towards the end of his life which allowed his wife and the rest of the Gang of Four to exploit Mao for their evil plot of seizing power.

Lastly, if there is anyone who should be linked to Hitler, it should be Hirohito not Mao. Both Hitler and Hirohito were guilty of War Crimes including directing State-sponsored Genocidal Wars which led to the European Holocaust (in the case of Hitler) and the Asian Holocaust (in the case of Hirohito).

So my question now is: how come nobody ever mentions HIROHITO? It is because Japan is a U.S. ally?
Or is it because the West wants to demonize Mao in order to discredit the CCP?

Germandude

Thank you for your reply. I agree with you on all points and don’t seek further discussion. Have a nice day.

mr.wiener

Blame the Chinese people, not Mao you mean?

narsfweasels

Well now, if only the Party would take their cue from the people on this one and apologise – in exactly the same way that they expect the Japanese to do.

donscarletti

When Japanese apologise, they slice their abdomen open with a dagger (tanto), bleed in silence for a while, then have their head hacked off by their friend / pupil. Taking important shit seriously is why the two sino-japanese wars were so one sided.

Though in the party’s defense, the bulk of it was against the excesses of the cultural revolution and by and large tried very hard to isolate Mao after he lead the country into famine in the great leap forward. The culural revolution was Mao using the violent rabble to purge the party of the sensible people trying to lead China forward, including China’s saviour Deng and the other mentors and patrons of the last three generations of leadership.

Alex Dương

> Taking important shit seriously is why the two sino-japanese wars were so one sided.

The first one was very one-sided. The second, not so much.

Wodowsan

Until the aid and involvement of the Allies, the second Sino-Japanese war (World War II) was also very one sided. Madam Chiang went before the American congress to drum up support for China. Many Americans responded in kind. The Flying Tigers for example were fighting the Japanese before the attacked Pearl Harbor. The Americans also had sever trade sanctions on the Japanese. the major reason the Japanese attacked the Americans. The Americans were choking off their oil and rubber. The British were training KMT forces in India and then sending them back to Chongqing to fight. It was also the KMT that did the bulk of the fighting against the Japanese, not the Communist, who were still licking their wounds form the “Long Retreat” The Party and CCTV seem to forget a lot of that history.

Alex Dương

If by “until the aid and involvement of the Allies,” you mean “until December 7, 1941,” I still disagree. The Second Sino-Japanese War began on July 7, 1937. The ROC had been at war with Imperial Japan for four whole years and five months by the time Pearl Harbor happened. By contrast, France, which was much stronger than China at the time, fell in six weeks.

Indeed, China was the reason Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Tokyo had originally only planned for a three month war in China. Shanghai alone took more than three months, and as I just said, by late 1941, Japan had been quagmired in China for over four years. They were running low on resources, and Pearl Harbor was a desperation move meant to discourage the U.S. from getting involved in Japan’s planned Southeast Asia campaign.

Also, I never defended the CCP’s version of the Second Sino-Japanese War. I merely said that it was not one sided, and it wasn’t.

Germandude

The ROC had been at war with Imperial Japan for four whole years and five months by the time Pearl Harbor happened. By contrast, France, which was much stronger than China at the time, fell in six weeks.

Chinese casualties in the 2nd Sino-Japanese war:
between 20-35 mio (first number by western historians, 2nd by chinese historians)
Japanese casualties in that time: 2.2 million

Casualties include dead and wounded

French casualties in the invasion through Germany:
approx. 360,000 (that already includes the British expedition force)

German casualties in the time: approx. 160,000

France’s army might have been better equipped than the Chinese one, but their officers and generals were still fighting wars like they were fought decades before. They totally lost out of strategical and tactical reasons and decided to surrender to spare lives.

Contrary to that, China and Russia threw 10s of millions of soldiers towards the enemies, because there was plenty of supply of lives for the front.
Sure, China and Russia won their battles in the end. But at what cost and for what kind of leaders?

Alex Dương

First, let’s get one thing straight. Despite upvoting Wodowsan’s comment, you are in fact agreeing with me that the Second Sino-Japanese War was not one sided. It lasted over eight years. By contrast, the First Sino-Japanese War lasted eight months, and as I already mentioned, the Battle of France lasted six weeks.

Second, what is your point? The Chinese should have surrendered to the Japanese to spare lives? Gee, who else should have surrendered for that reason? The Soviets to the Germans? The Viet Minh to the French?

Wars aren’t pretty. But I find it a bit odd that you are basically saying that oppressed people should just take it up the ass.

Germandude

I think you misunderstand me. I upvoted Wodowsan’s comment, because the help the Americans gave to China was a great act that is often forgotten. Certainly, by many Chinese that don’t acknowledge that without US efforts against Japan, history might have turned very different.
I don’t say that Japan would have won in such a case.

Regarding the Soviets. Many many Russian soldiers were sent to death because of Stalin demanding offensives against the invadors at times they were actually unable to out of strategical positions. However, generals followed those orders and sent millions of soldiers into certain death, just because they were afraid of Stalin’s terror.
Even while the German army was beaten and outnumbered, during its retreat, the Russians on average lost 3 men to 1, because of shortcomings in waiting for the right moment, allowing guys at the scene to make tactical decisions rather than Stalin who had no clue about what’s going on.
Contrary to that, the German army was successfull at the times Hitler allowed the generals to make the decisions. Each time he took control, he lost.

Alex Dương

Forgotten by whom? China is the only country in the world that has a museum dedicated exclusively to the Flying Tigers. Also, I don’t know what kind of Chinese we’re talking about here who don’t know that the U.S. was key to beating Japan in WWII.

Again, I don’t understand what you’re trying to get at with the Soviets. They had organizational and philosophical issues that hindered their military performance? Sure. They should’ve just surrendered to the Germans? Uh, no.

Germandude

Well, we agree on the last 2 of your questions then.

Alex Dương

Not to be belligerent, but I don’t see why you thought that I was ever disputing that the Soviets had some major issues impeding their performance (e.g. Stalin purging the generals earlier and replacing them with incompetent sycophants). Nothing I said contradicted that.

Germandude

I am not targeting on you man. The only thing I felt was very strange is your remark regarding France. Yes, they had a formidable military and France is often ridiculed by many others because of it falling so quickly. That’s simply not fair.

Alex Dương

Remember that I’m strongly disputing that the Second Sino-Japanese War was one sided. I did not mention the Battle of France to ridicule the French. I mentioned it to give a contrast: France fell in six weeks, while (much, much weaker at the time) China fought almost alone for over four years.

Zappa Frank

there is a huge difference in size and population between France and China.. besides Japan were fight in all the south-east at the same time. Probably Japan knew that to keep such a big country would be a huge effort that was not worth in that moment.

Alex Dương

There’s a huge difference in size and population between Japan and China too. That didn’t prevent the Japanese from easily winning the First Sino-Japanese War, which was indeed one sided.

Your timeline is wrong. Japan didn’t invade French Indochina until September 1940, and they didn’t invade Hong Kong, Malaya (including Singapore), and Indonesia until December 1941. By September 1940, Japan had been stuck in China for over three years.

Your guess is also wrong. If Japan thought it wasn’t “worth it” to continue conquering China, they would not have kept trying for eight years to get Chiang Kai-shek to surrender.

Zappa Frank

If they were wasting their forces in other countries I don’t think that to conquer china was that urgent for them… Chang was searched, but sincerely I think more to prevent any future insurrection than for a real desire to conquer Sichuan and Shaanxi where he was hiding.
I may be wrong but seems to me that is nationalism that guide this vision of WW2..Is it hard to accept that Chinese army wasn’t that great..?

Alex Dương

I have never said the ROC Army was great. My goodness, I find it so amusing that you and several others are trying to paint me as a “nationalist” when all I am saying is that the Second Sino-Japanese War was not one sided. Somehow that very weak statement – it wasn’t one sided – is interpreted by you as “The ROC Army was the greatest the world has ever seen.”

And you misunderstand. By 1941, Japan was desperate to break their stalemate in China. The war was dragging on, and resources were running low. Japan attacked the U.S. in attempt to discourage it from intervening in Tokyo’s planned Southeast Asia campaign for resources to be used to finish the war in China.

Wodowsan

Yes France fell quickly to the Germans. That does not mean China was fairing well against the Japanese, I would also point out that France is only the size of single Chinese provinces with a smaller population, and did not have a sea between its boarders and Germany. The Germans also out maneuvered the French and Brits masterfully and had some major lucky breaks. Even Hitler did not expect to route them as quickly as they did. The Germans also took Poland quickly, but they had the Soviets hitting the Poles from the East. They did not do it alone.
It would be like me, just for nationalist pride, saying that the Americans defeated the British all on their own in the American Revolution. The American would never have won without the help of the French. Most major battles against the British the Americans had their asses kicked.
At the siege of Yorktown there were actually more French troops than Americans encircling the British who were also bottled up, not by an American fleet, but a French fleet.
I understand many Chinese like to see the world as us and them, but the simple fact is the Chinese would not have won the war against the Japanese without Ally assistance.
I am also not so confident the Americans could have defeated Imperial Japan without the Chinese and other Asian nations and powers taking the blunt of the Japanese military as the Americans island hopped to strike Japan. You have to remember that before Pearl Harbor Americans were not ready for war. America had a strong isolationist movement at the time and was just coming out of a major depression.
I just found that CCTV and the Chinese education system tries very hard not to give credit to the other nations that helped in defeating Imperial Japan and they give the PLA way too much credit when it was actually the KMT that was engaging the Japanese much more so.

Alex Dương

I didn’t say China fared well against Japan; I said the Second Sino-Japanese War wasn’t one sided. I also didn’t say that China singlehandedly defeated Japan; again, all I said was that the Second Sino-Japanese War wasn’t one sided. It lasted eight years, over four of which were fought by China largely alone. That fact by itself disqualifies any statement that the war was one sided.

As for France, like I said, back then, France was much stronger militarily than China was. And while you say that there’s no body of water separating China and Japan, what does that matter when the Japanese were already physically in China in 1937?

You have twice now straw manned me as a purveyor of the CCP’s official “history.” I don’t understand why disputing your insistence that the Second Sino-Japanese War was one sided, when it was not, leads you to believe that I think the KMT’s armies did nothing in WWII.

Jobjed

OMG, of course the Second Sino-Japanese War was one-sided. A simple look at the casualties would tell you everything you need to know; 20 million Chinese dead vs 3 million Japanese.

Zappa Frank

Alone that doesn’t say much, even between Russians and Germans the proportion is similar, but in the end who reached Berlin?

Alex Dương

So when did Chiang Kai-shek flee Chongqing and escape captured China for British India?

sfphoto1

The 20 million Chinese dead are mostly civilians while the 3 million Japanese dead are mostly military casualties. And that’s because China not Japan was the country being attacked.

That statistic in no way diminishes the Chinese people’s heroic resistance against the invasion of the Japanese Imperial Army which tied them down for more than eight years before the U.S. Military dropped two nukes on Japan, thus ending the War.

Contrast that to the surrender of the so-called Western Powers who fell in a matter of days:

“The Imperial Japanese Army’s Lieutenant General Tomoyuki Yamashita and his 25th Army, outnumbered in some accounts by as much as three to one, opened World War II with an unparalleled accomplishment of arms: conquest of the entire 700-mile Malay Peninsula in 70 days. In the process, Japan’s joint forces inflicted a psychologically devastating defeat on the British when they sank the only Royal Navy capital ships in the Pacific; destroyed the allied British, Australian, Indian, and Malayan defenders (while tearing through the “impassable” Malay jungle); and overpowered the “impregnable” Fortress Singapore. This victory would ultimately mark the end of the British Empire in Asia, while the psychological impact of the defeat would stay with Britain throughout the entire war.”

The citation is correct. In fact, when the commander of British forces in Singapore, Lt. General Percival, asked for a meeting with Lt. General Yamashita it was Yamashita who thought Percival would ask for the Japanese surrender. Yamashita, creator of the “driving charge” tactic which raced through the Malay peninsula, knew the Japanese troops were out-numbered, exhausted, and had about three rounds of ammunition each. Yamashita did not know the strength or condition of the British forces in Singapore and assumed a counter-attack was coming, but when facing Percival, a man of no combat experience, Yamashita understood that the British forces were demoralized. He immediately became aggressive, threatening the total destruction of all British forces if surrender was not within one hour. You can see the face of Percival, a man lost, and with that surrender Britain lost it all in the Pacific.

The same thing happened on Corregidor, the fortress complex held by the Americans in the Philippines, which finally surrendered to an inferior Japanese force. In both instances the Americans and British had overestimated the strength of the Japanese forces, underestimated the combat discipline and effectiveness of the Japanese, and were sadly ignorant of the consequences of surrendering to the Japanese.

From my apartment in Shanghai I can clearly see the 四行倉庫 which held out for three days against a superior Japanese force and surrendered with life and arms intact. Experience warns not to judge combat troops by racial or cultural prejudices; don’t underestimate the enemy.

sfphoto1

And the Western Powers were lucky that their countries were not the first to be attacked by the Imperial Japanese Army. Imagine if the Japanese were in the Gulf of Mexico, and then without warning, they started attacking the U.S. mainland. There would have been the Rape of Washington instead of the Bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The West has so far ignored the role of Emperor Hirohito in what should be called the Asian Holocaust, preferring instead to demonize Mao by equating his People’s Revolution with Imperialist Wars of Aggression. Emperor Hirohito is the Asian equivalent of Adolf Hitler, and his Pacific War to establish the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere the equivalent of Hitler’s attempt to establish the Third Reich. Similar to Hitler’s Nazism, Japan’s Imperial Shintoism, symbolized by the Yasukuni Shrine, provided the Japanese Imperial Army the quasi-ideological, pseudo-religious “divine right” to conquer and “liberate” Asia from the West, based on the alleged racial superiority of the Japanese.

“For war crimes committed by Japan’s military forces, which were the authorized servants of the emperor-state during the undeclared Japan-China War, Hirohito, as commander-in-chief, bore the strongest share of political, legal, and moral responsibility. He gave post-facto sanction to Japan’s take-over of Manchuria in violation of international treaties and agreements. He later participated actively in the planning and waging of Japan’s total war of aggression in China. As Japan’s sacred spiritual leader and symbol of national identity he (and his Court Group) framed the China conflict as a “holy war.” Working in close cooperation with the military, Hirohito brought emperor worship to fever pitch. He also ordered and monitored the bombing of Chinese cities, use of poison gas, and annihilation campaigns to wipe out the entire populations of contested areas in North and Central China.”

“For the war crimes and other violations of international law committed by Japan’s military forces after December 7, 1941, the largest share of responsibility may again be attributed to Hirohito as both commander in chief and head of state. At every stage on the road to Singora, Kota Bharo, and Pearl Harbor he was free to choose alternative courses of action rather than accept the thinking of his military chiefs. When, for example, Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro, on September 5, 1941, gave him the chance to stop the rush to war against Britain and the US, he rejected it. Over the next four years, until mid-1945, whenever confronted with the option of peace, he chose war.”

Of course I know of the bravery of the Chinese population during the invasion. What I’m getting at here is that China’s military was severely outmatched by Japan’s and nearly every engagement was won by the Japanese. The war was decidedly one-sided in Japan’s favour and the fact that the majority of Chinese did not surrender in the face of such odds only gives further testament to their bravery and conviction.

sfphoto1

Thanks for your reply. The Japanese used chemical weapons, germ warfare and bombing raids against Chinese cities. That accounted for most of the civilian deaths. However, looking at the military casualties, both the Chinese Nationalist Army and the Japanese Imperial Army suffered about evenly, between 2-3 million dead each. Mao’s PLA hardly took part at all but instead hid in the mountains in Western China and waited until the Pacific War is over before attacking Chiang Kai Shek’s Nationalist Army.

No doubt the Japanese had superior weapons but I think their brutal savagery exemplified by their “Three-Alls” (kill all, loot all, burn all) strategy is what accounted for the number of civilians murdered not their military prowess. By contrast, Chiang’s “Space for Time” strategy proved quite effective in delaying and then outmaneuvering the superior firepower of the Japanese.

“Perhaps one of the most devastating episodes was when Chiang ordered the breaching of dikes that held back the Yellow River. The deliberate flooding of vast stretches of Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu in 1938 was aimed at slowing the Japanese advance and was done without warning to preserve the element of surprise. Some half a million Chinese died in the deluge and another 4 million were displaced from their homes. It was a ghastly price to pay, but is emblematic of the determination and sacrifices that enabled the Chinese to prevail. True, Chinese battlefield victories were few, but by trading space for time and avoiding decisive defeat, Japan’s proud warriors were worn down by a nation that would not surrender.”

It looks like the fuss in this thread all goes back to the definition people have in mind when using “one-sided”.

I’d like to think those saying it was “one-sided” are saying the Chinese were significantly disadvantaged compared to the invading Japanese. This was true. China, despite being a larger and more populous country with an impressive history, was not remotely as modernized and united as Japan. All else equal, the Japanese forces were superior to their Chinese counterparts.

All Alex is saying is that the Nationalist forces gave the Japanese hell despite the above, that the Chinese confounded Japanese expectations of how easy victory in China would be. This was true. The Second Sino-Japanese War as not remotely as one-sided as the Japanese had thought it would be and certainly better than the first one.

Why are people downvoting Alex? He’s not denying American help or America’s role in the Pacific Theatre. He’s certainly not crediting the Communists with China’s resistance efforts. What exactly did he say that was so offensive or disagreeable?

Zappa Frank

why a moderator have to ask why other people are downvoted? Alex did get just 2 downvote and no one from me.
at my side I’ve just asked some questions on something that evidently I know by far less than him.

Kai

It was a rhetorical question, meaning I disagree with the people who are downvoting him because I don’t see what is so offensive or disagreeable with what he said. If what he said isn’t offensive or disagreeable to me, then I figure people must be downvoting him for reasons that I consider unfair. If people want to explain the reason(s) they are downvoting his comment, I’d be more than happy to consider them.

I didn’t @ mentioned you to accuse you of downvoting him; I @ mentioned you because I felt my comment might help explain a disagreement or misunderstanding between you two.

Germandude

I downvoted him once. For this:

As for France, like I said, back then, France was much stronger militarily than China was. And while you say that there’s no body of water separating China and Japan, what does that matter when the Japanese were already physically in China in 1937?

It simply doesn’t make sense to compare France with China. Japan wasn’t able to produce tanks and weapons within China to shorten its supply routes.

While France had the stronger military of the 2, it also was in a far worse strategical position towards Germany, sharing only a short border with it. Germany was in fact able to overrun the BeNeLux states to increase the potential area of attack. France assumed that but was not prepared for the speed in which that happened. Plus, that was the obvious strategy France would take (entering Belgium) to fight Germany and so, Germany itself built their plans around it. Additionally, France’s army had more numbers in tanks and artillery but unlike Germany, spreaded the tanks equally as support of other units, whereas Germany attacked with huge tank groups alone, basically outflanking strongpoints.

Japan however from the beginning of the war against China had the huge disadvantage of having to transport all its supplies into China in order to fight on that front. This is an enormous problem as the further away you fight, the more your fighting power shrinks because units are missing fuel, ammunition and food (which only can gained in limited amounts in conquered land, except food).

Interesting to see is that with further expansion, your fighting power is reduced continuasly and the magical line is 1000 miles. Napoleon came close to it with horses on his attack to Moscow. Germany came close to it with its attack on Moscow while using tanks and trucks. Japan also pretty much expanded in that radius and probably thought that China is beaten by the time the most important coastal cities and vast amount of China’s land were occupied. Then it focused more and more to fight the US because in their eyes, China was no real threat for the moment, compared to the US.

The problems within the Chinese army were obviously the poor equipment and the different interest groups that only came together to fight the foreign invaders knowing that after being successfull, fighting each other will continue. 10 mio people more or less dead? Who cared at that time?

Kai

Does @haysoosnegro:disqus ‘s comparison of France quickly surrendering to the Germans while the Chinese refused to for over 4 years not support his contention that the Second Sino-Japanese War was neither “one-sided” according to his definition and not as “one-sided” as the First Sino-Japanese War?

I thought his juxtaposition helped illustrate his point of disagreement with Wodowsan just fine.

Even if we accept that France was in a more disadvantageous strategic position (which is arguable until we narrow down what we’re considering as “strategic”), is it inaccurate to say the war between France and Germany was more one-sided than the Second Sino-Japanese War? Is it inaccurate to say Germany’s quick victory over France was more one-sided than the Japanese stalled conquest of China?

I think most of what you are arguing is in defense of France’s honor, but I don’t quite see how Alex was disparaging France.

If someone knocks me unconscious with one punch, it’s still more “one-sided” than someone who is repeatedly punched and kicked but hangs onto consciousness for four years until someone else joins the fight. Whether or not I had my back turned to the guy punching me (a worse strategic position) doesn’t change the appropriateness of characterizing a one-hit KO as more “one-sided” than another guy going ten rounds hanging on the ropes (sorry if the boxing metaphor doesn’t make immediate sense).

So, I think you downvoted Alex for disparaging France, but I disagree with your downvote because I didn’t feel that he did, and am not convinced that he did. I think he’d acknowledge what you’ve said above and point out that it doesn’t change the reason he used France as a juxtaposition of “one-sidedness”.

Zappa Frank

But If we look at the size of France and what japan conquered of china we can see that more than one France fit inside that space, and the same we can say for the population. In my opinion is not that obvious…how many battle won china? I read just about one, but as said before my knowledge is limited. if the point is just that the whole china was not conquered and this should make the war not just one side it doesn’t seem to me a strong point considering the dimension of china, the multiple war fronts of japan and the logistic problems..
As Italian I can assure that I can but enjoy if the France honor is diminished…

Alex Dương

You have to remember that when the Second Sino-Japanese War began, there were no “multiple war fronts.” Japan wasn’t boasting; it honestly believed it could conquer the entire ROC in three months. As for logistical issues, the Kwantung Army was stationed in Manchukuo / Northeast China. Of course that wasn’t the entire Imperial Japanese Army, but the point remains that Japan had a physical presence in China when the war began.

Kai

Alex’s definition of “one-sided” here is “how quickly the aggressor defeated the victim causing the victim to surrender”. Germany defeated France very quickly. In comparison, China refused to surrender and kept fighting for over 4 years before the US joined the battle. Alex believes this means the “one-sided” characterization fits France more than China. He believes “one-sided” describes the First Sino-Japanese War better than the Second Sino-Japanese War. He believes the fact that Chinese forces prevented Japan from achieving victory in the short time span Japan expected makes “one-sided” an inaccurate description.

Germandude

I’ve removed my downvote if that makes you feel better. I can follow your argument why it might have been unjustified, so peace on that. I am not fighting for France’s honor on a side like chinaSmack, why should I?
Regarding the 2nd Sino-Japanese war, there are plenty of documentaries, books and webpages filled with information that are easy to find. Read some of them to understand Japan’s position on not continuing big-scale expansion after Pearl Harbour and why the US involvement in Asia-Pacific is the true reason of Asia not being under the flag of the Rising Sun. That’s not even a theoretical statement of mine, that’s commonly accepted historical fact.

Alex Dương

I’m not sure who here is disputing the key role of the U.S. in forcing the Empire of Japan to surrender. To be clear, I am disputing that China was irrelevant to Pearl Harbor. To the contrary, I’m arguing that China was the reason Japan bombed Pearl Harbor: Japan had been quagmired in China for almost 4.5 years, and it was running low on resources. Pearl Harbor was a desperation move to try to break the deadlock in China.

The “reasoning” was that bombing Pearl Harbor would serve as a warning to the U.S. to not intervene in Japan’s planned Southeast Asia campaign for resources. If that had succeeded, then Japan would have swept through Southeast Asia with a free hand, obtained the resources it needed over the next few years, and continued to apply the pressure on China.

If things had gone as originally planned, Japan would’ve conquered China in three months. If that had happened, would Japan have had any motivation to bomb Pearl Harbor? No.

Kai

Hah, dude, I don’t want you to vote based on what you think makes me feel better. My goal in joining this conversation isn’t to get people to change their votes; I’m just trying to help people in a discussion understand each other as I understand them.

I’d defend France’s honor if someone was unfairly disparaging it regardless of what site I was on. :) You should defend France’s honor if @haysoosnegro:disqus was being unfair to it. I just don’t think he was.

What you said doesn’t change what Alex is saying. Yes, France was in a bad strategic position, but yes, that bad strategic position also resulted in a “one-sided” war betwen France and Germany. Yes, Japan perhaps had longer supply lines, but yes, the Nationalists did prevent the Japanese from having the “one-sided” quick victory it assumed it would achieve. See what I mean?

Next, I happen to agree that attacking the US was a fatal mistake for Japan (though not the only one). I think Alex agrees wth this. You need to ask yourself why you are repeating to us the significance of the US joining the Pacific Theatre. Are you repeating this to him and asking me to read information about the Second Sino-Japanese War because you think we don’t know how significant the US was? Or that we deny the significance of the US?

Alex gets the impression from some people’s replies to him that those people think he’s a CCP apologist/nationalist. He doesn’t understand why because he didn’t say anything to suggest he is. So if he didn’t, then why are people responding to him in that way? I think his consternation is easy to understand.

Alex Dương

Kai understood me correctly. I did not bring up France to mock / disparage / ridicule the French. It was meant as a contrast. And I think you’re hard pressed to deny that the contrast was stark. In 1937 / 1940, France was a global imperial power with colonies in Africa and Asia. China didn’t even have sovereignty within her own borders in 1937!

As for your claim that Japan “had the huge disadvantage of having to transport all its supplies into China in order to fight on that front,” are you forgetting about Manchukuo? Japan had physically been in China since 1931. Manchukuo was very industrialized for the time, and it was capable of producing military hardware, including heavy weapons, “within China.”

Germandude

I removed my downvote for your comparison with France. Maybe I really just misunderstood you and you didn’t intend to ridicule France.
Read some books about the wars Japan had with Russia regarding Manchuria and maybe you understand the Japanese fearing the threat of Russia attacking Japan during the Sino-Japanese war. That alone kept a huge military force on stand-by in the North-East of China that until Germany attacked Russia wasn’t really involved in any actions because of the Japanese fear of a Russian attack. (Likewise Russia had huge forces stationed there that were lacking the fight against Germany).

Do you have any sources on the industrial output of Manchukuo between 1937 and 1945? Preferably about military equipment produced for the Japanese that were ready for combat?
I doubt it was ever a considerable number, because occupied territory takes time to be productive for war efforts. Logistics, supplies, bomb attacks, sabotage etc. make it more favorable to produce your equipment at safer places. The threat of Russia to Manchukuo makes it even more unrealistic that any significant amount of equipment was produced there.

Below map shows Chinese territory held by the Japanese army (in red) in 1940. The most important points occupied, with the vast “hinterland” left. At the time of Russian-Japanese not so friendly relationships and a potential war between both.

Alex Dương

The past is the past. I don’t have anything against France. But I do find it a bit perplexing that so many of you lept to France’s “defense” while staying on the sidelines when I disagreed that China was beaten easily.

You’re asking for detailed figures that I don’t have unless I check my library. I can only say that Japan actively developed Manchukuo as a source of natural resources, particularly steel.

Japan seized Manchuria in 1931, and it didn’t take long for them to treat the area as Japanese. By 1945, hundreds of thousands of Japanese had emigrated to Manchukuo, despite its precarious location relative to the Soviet Union.

“Frank” is saying that China benefited from bodies of water separating them from Japan, unlike France’s case with Germany. But by 1937, Japan had firm control over Manchuria (in China) and Korea (bordering China). It was not as difficult as you and he have made it seem for Japan to transport troops, vehicles, and heavy weapons to China.

Wodowsan

My comments are not directed solely to Alex. I am actually directing my comments in response to my experience of teaching university in China for over three and half years and seeing the lop sided view of history the Party is pushing to drum up nationalism and a us against them mentality.
It is an opinion based on observation and speaking with Chinese educators, Chinese students, and viewing the Ant-Japanese CCTV broadcasts..
The Sino-Japanese War may have ended faster but in that conflict the Japanese were not trying to dominate most of China and the Chinese sued for peace early.
The Second World War was a different story. The Japanese took big chunks out of China and credit most be given to the KMT that they were not suing for peace like the old imperial court. But they also did receive a lot of international support during those four years in supplies, and sanctions against Japan.
I am not accusing Alex personally that he is not giving credit to the international community, especially the west, in helping China to continue their struggle against the invaders. I am though pointing out that the Party gives little if any mention of how the west helped China, and also tries to take full credit for what the KMT actually did in opposing Japanese forces.

Alex Dương

I think you’re exaggerating the extent of “international support” the ROC received from July 7, 1937 to December 7, 1941. Lend Lease was extended to China in April 1941, and the ROC received just a bit over 5% of what the U.K. received over the next four years; the Export Control Act was passed on July 2, 1940; and the full-on embargo was passed in August 1941.

Again, lest I continue to be misunderstood, I am not saying the ROC received no international support from 1937 to 1941. But it’s not as much as you’re trying to make it seem.

sfphoto1

Agree with Wodowsan that the CCP has tried to claim sole credit for waging the War of Resistance against the invading Japanese Imperial Army. However, there are reports of Chiang Kai Shek being “rehabilitated” and given credit for fighting the Japanese alongside the CCP. It’s still inaccurate though useful as propaganda to facilitate rapprochement with the KMT.

sfphoto1

Apologise to whom? To you? And who are you to demand that the CCP, the ruling political party of the People’s Republic of China apologise?

Tova Rischi

“Learn from history, may the dead rest in peace, may the living solemnly remember, may history not be repeated.”

It should be repeated a thousand times.

I’m not going to try and justify the actions taken then, but I would like to point out that land divided among warlords united under another corrupt government isn’t a much better prospect. That is what they were measuring, too, prospects; not just in the CR, but in the civil war too. And when your culture is trapped in/held back by a feudal mindset of might makes right, superstition, leader worship, bigotry, and other nonsense, it needs to be changed (not that they succeeded). Not to mention, hindsight is 20/20 afterall.

My point is it was a terrible time, during, before, and after the civil war. I don’t understand how anyone can turn around and praise their own particular favorite revolutionary, whether that’s Luksemburg or Lenin or Pinochet or Salazar, or even Washington or Franklin. There are a lot of people who have died because the right thing isn’t always clear. I’ve taken a lesson of pacifism from it, but others are welcome to their own conclusions.

The CCP is guilty. So is the country that created them. To that they have nothing to do except to apologize and begin to do the things that make redemption graspable. Which is why what Ms. Song did is right.

Mistakes were made, and I just wish China, and every nation, could move on.

Sorry… I know I sound like a stupid idiot – probably am one, but this – never forget, move to redemption – is the lesson I’ve taken from the East Germans, Armenians, and Chinese (Taiwanese, Hong Konger, Mainlander, Indonesian Han) I’ve known.

Zappa Frank

Than we should as well blame Russians and Germans. What you point out has some points and in my opinion is the reason why we should not so easily think that we are different and we are better from past and from other people. It reminds me a jack London’s novel, but don’t remember which.

Zappa Frank

.

Wodowsan

Mao is to be blamed. The Party should be condemned as long as they keep his image on their money and his statues on their campuses. Imagine Germany having Hitler on all their money, and his statues on their campuses.
Yet, those that did follow and obey him should also be blamed. Without military support and without public opposition, no single tyrant would ever maintain power.
They complain about the Japanese not teaching their history (which is not true, they do teach their students about their war crimes.) Yet they do not teach the truth about the Party’s real history that caused more deaths and suffering than the Japanese and a century of colonial rule every did. I have known many more Chinese that have had family members’ lives ruined or destroyed by the Party than by Imperial Japanese forces or European Colonists.

sfphoto1

And who should condemn the CCP? You? And who appointed you to condemn Mao and CCP? The Chinese People? So what’s the relationship between the Imperial Japanese Army’s War Crimes and Mao’s People’s Revolution?

Wodowsan

Who appointed you to condemn what I say? You should be harmonious and only agree with everything I say! You are troublesome! (of course I am waving an accusing finger in your fact as I say all this.)

In a serious tone:
To answer your question. The high end estimate (Official PRC statistics) for China’s civilian and military casualties in the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945 are 20 million dead in comparison, the number of Chinese killed under Mao has been estimated to as high as 70 million. This is only from his campaigns in the Great Leap ‘Backwards’ and the Cultural Revolution. If you rather only believe the lower estimates we still talking at least 45 million killed under Mao, it is still two times more than the Japanese had killed.

This does not include all the ruined lived the Great Leap forward and the Cultural Revolution caused.
I recommend you read “Mao’s Great Famine” by Frank Dikotter, “Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine” by Yang Jisheng. and “Mao: The Unknown Story” by Jung Chang

Let’s not forget the estimated 7.5 million Chinese killed by Chinese in the struggle for power between the KMT and the CCP.
Let us also not forget how many Chinese lives Mao threw away, including his own son, in the Korean War supporting North Korea, which we all know has blossomed into a communist utopia where the people grow fat from the success of centralized planning. According to international estimates 400,000 Chinese died for the Kim Dynasty, or if you want to only believe official party estimates 114,000 Chinese lives were thrown away to keep the Kim family in power.

sfphoto1

The bloodiest conflict in U.S. history is the American Civil War. And guess who started the it? Abraham Lincoln. By your reasoning, since Abraham Lincoln caused more American deaths than the Japanese, he should be condemned as more evil than Emperor HIrohito. And that the Yanks should apologize to the Southerners for the mass slaughter and complete destruction of the Old South.

You don’t seem to understand the concept of “national sovereignity”. What transpired on U.S. soil is American history. And only Americans can decide if Abraham Lincoln was a hero for uniting the U.S.A. against the Confederate States. To the Yanks, he was a hero. But to the Southerners, he was a villain.

You keep repeating the number of people allegedly “killed” by Mao when in fact the Great Leap Forward was a POLICY FAILURE which CAUSED tens of millions of deaths by FAMINE. Millions of people die every year due to disease, hunger, poverty, disasters in the Third World. Are you implying that we should condemn those Third World governments for “killing” their own people?

FAMINE IS NOT THE SAME AS GENOCIDE.

Emperor Hirohito directing the Imperial Japanese Army to wage an Imperialist War of Aggression against FOREIGN countries based on a racist ideology is GENOCIDE. He should have been convicted of WAR CRIMES and HANGED.

“They complain about the Japanese not teaching their history (which is not true, they do teach their students about their war crimes)”

REALLY? Are you BLIND or STUPID?

There are thousands of incidents to prove otherwise. Just google “Yasukuni”, “Comfort Women”, etc. SINCE THE ENTIRE WORLD KNOWS OTHERWISE, THIS STATEMENT OF YOURS PROVES YOU’RE AN APOLOGIST FOR JAPANESE MILITARISM.

YOU WANT THE CCP TO APOLOGIZE FOR WHAT? FAMINE CAUSED BY THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD WHICH IS A POLICY FAILURE OF MARXISM-LENINISM? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? THE CCP HAS ALREADY REJECTED MARXISM-LENINISM EVER SINCE DENG’S REFORMS IN THE 80S.

MASS HYSTERIA DURING THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION? THE CCP ITSELF WAS A VICTIM OF THE HOOLIGANISM DURING THAT CHAOTIC PERIOD. AND MAO WAS ALREADY SENILE WHEN IT WENT OUT OF CONTROL. CAN’T BLAME MAO NOR THE CCP HERE EITHER.

It is easy to say that Mao “killed” those people. But he didn’t. Those deaths were the result of the Revolutionary Period that China was in at the time, exacerbated by the Cold War. During the first two years after the founding of the PRC, the peasant masses rose up in arms and killed two million landlords. And it was the PEOPLE who were doing the killings. That’s why Mao called his movement the PEOPLE’S REVOLUTION.

NOW WHO SHOULD APOLOGIZE TO WHOM? SHOULD THE PEASANT MASSES APOLOGIZE FOR KILLING THEIR OPPRESSOR LANDLORDS?

TO MAO, POWER BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE. AND THE PEOPLE HAS THE RIGHT TO EXERCISE THAT POWER BY VIOLENCE. THAT IS THE MEANING OF MAO’S REVOLUTION IN CHINA.

PRC = PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

AND NO STUPID LAOWAI WILL EVER CHANGE THAT. INTIENDE, GRINGO?

Wodowsan

Actually Lincoln did not start the American Civil War. The Confederates first fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston, SC. starting the American Civil War. Lincoln responded by fighting a war against a tyrannical slave state that freed millions. You clearly do not know your history. But coming from a nation that censors and rewrites history I can understand why you do not.

You are though correct that the American Civil caused more lives than all other wars that Americans fought put together. A price some say we had to pay in blood for the sin of slavery.

You do not seem to understand the concept of irrational racist nationalism, that you clearly support.

And yes really, the Japanese do devote one week in schools each year to the crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese. I have had friends who are from Japan and others who have taught in Japan. That is a fact they never report of CCTV. Because the Chinese government wants to continue to flame hatred for the Japanese so the people will be distracted from China’s domestic problems.

I am not apologizing for the war crimes of the Imperial Japanese. Which were actually more horrible then have been shown on Chinese movies and television. I support that many Japanese leaders were executed after the war for their war crimes.

That does not mean I am going to hate the Japanese of today that have not committed any war crimes. I do not condemn the son for the crimes of the father, and especially not for the grandfather.If some Japanese idiot started to praise the Imperial Japanese I would condemn their position as I am condemning yours for supporting Mao, or an American racist that would idolize the Confederate States and slavery. But I am not condemning all Japanese for those few idiots, or condemning all American southerners for the few red necks, or all Chinese for your views. I do condemn the Party of Today still supporting Mao and idolizing Mao to justify their complete dominance of power.

As for Hirohito it is up in the air if he had any real power, and was only a stooge for the Fascist militants in control of Japan at that time. Do I think he should be on the Japanese Yen like Mao is on The RMB. No I do not. Do I think Japanese should honor war criminal’s graves, no I do not. But the grave yard the Japanese Prime-minister visited is filled with many Japanese War dead from Many other conflicts. Perhaps those few actually convicted war criminals should be removed from that graveyard of their honored dead. There I would agree with you.

I agree with you that the Japanese should remember what the Japanese did and the Japanese should learn from it. As the American should also know their darker sides of history, and the Chinese should know theirs. In order not to repeat those horrors. That does not include only genocides, but arrogant tyrannical centralized planning that caused more deaths in peace time than during any war. If I starve you to death or shoot you with a bullet, is there really a difference?

PRC means People’s Republic of China? Really, I thought it really means Party’s Repressive China. Where do the people have any say in their nation’s policies? Where do the people have the ability to choice those that own and control their nation? Where do the people have the freedom to speak up against the government’s policies? How is it a Republic when the people cannot choose anyone they want to represent them? How is it the people’s when you even have to be sponsored by someone in the party to even join the party? The only part that is true in PRC is the word China.

As for me being a “Laowai” I am not attacking you for being Chinese. As you are clearly attacking me for not being Chinese. Besides does one have to be a chicken to know if an eggs is bad? With your logic, only Japanese can condemn the horrific acts of the Imperial Japanese

sfphoto1

Well, let’s agree to disagree then.

Americans have this tendency to view themselves as “exceptional” especially when it comes to passing moral judgement on the political history of foreign countries. That kind of thinking led tragically to the Vietnam War when Americans tried everything they could do to impose their values on that country. And what kind of government does Vietnam has today? Wouldn’t you consider Ho Chi Minh to be the tyrant responsible for the exodus of millions of South Vietnamese who met their tragic fate as “boat people”? Are you implying then that the Vietnamese today should not honor Ho Chi Minh and that they should abandon their Communist system of government? And if they don’t agree, are you suggesting that the U.S.A. start Vietnam War 2.0 against them to effect another “regime change”?

Every country in the world has their own culture, history, values and society. The American political-economic system is not appropriate for every country in the world. Even Canada has a different political-economic system especially its education and healthcare system which is more socialist even than the PRC! The problem is when Americans think THEIR values is the best or THEIR political-system is the best and therefore that belief somehow gives them the right to impose their values and ideology on the rest of the world.

You’re talking apples and I’m talking oranges. You’re talking about the internal politics of a foreign country while I’m talking about Imperialistic Wars of Aggression waged by Japan against foreign countries. I cited the American Civil War because that conflict cost more American lives than all the wars the U.S.A. has been involved in up to this day. Regardless of who started the American Civil War, the U.S. Military used “scotched-earth tactics” that resulted in the mass slaughter and complete destruction of the Old South. To this day, the Confederate Flag raises strong passions in the South, 150 years after that conflagration. Who are the heros and villains of that War? It’s not up to foreigners like me to decide but up to Americans like you to make that decision.

You talk of “freedom” and “democracy” as if everybody in the world share those “Western” values; most peoples in the world do not. What you’re doing is to pass moral judgement on the political history of a foreign country, a legal right which does not belong to you or your country.

Lastly, you expressed your apology for the Japanese neo-Fascists but where is your empathy to the victims of Japanese Militarism. Ever heard of the term “Conform Women”?

“Osaka’s outspoken and controversial mayor Toru Hashimoto said on Thursday that he has requested the city of San Francisco to retract a resolution condemning remarks that he made that sought to justify Japan’s wartime sex slavery.”

Hatred for the Japanese? I am sorry if I offended you for appearing “racist” towards the Japanese. I should have been more specific in my statements. I am talking about the “historical revisionism” of the Japanese neo-Fascists not the peaceful nature of the Japanese people today.

“China and South Korea criticized Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for defending his visit to a controversial shrine last December. Abe, while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, justified his visit to the Yasukuni Shrine that commemorates wartime dead in Japan, including several Class A war criminals. The visit has further strained Japan’s relations with both countries.”

“Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Qin Gang, however, saw the shrine as something else – a memorial to the “Nazis” of Asia. Speaking to the press, he said, “The Yasukuni Shrine is a spiritual tool and symbol of Japan’s militarism.” Choi Tai Young, South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson seconded saying, “I have repeatedly mentioned here about what kind of facility the Yasukuni Shrine is.” Further stating that, “It’s totally contradictory to talk about forging friendly ties with South Korea while continuing visits to the shrine.” Both countries believe that the shrine symbolizes Japan’s past military aggression during World War II, and Abe’s visit shows indifference towards his neighbors.”

And one last thing: you’re right that the American Civil War ended slavery but it took another 100 years before MLK, Jr.’s Civll Rights Movement could begin to build the New South.

China had the same problem but much worse: impoverished peasants, subjugated women, opium-addicted men, suffering centuries of feudal oppression and decades of colonial exploitation.

And what did Mao do?

He ended the opium-addiction of men. He freed women from bondage by abolishing slavery, prostitution, concubinage, foot-binding and infanticide which was a common practice in the Old Society. He liberated oppressed peasants from centuries of feudal oppression by giving them the power to seek Justice from their oppressor landlords.

And just how did the peasants seek Justice from their landlords?

By killing them.

I don’t see the need for any apologies there.

But Mao made mistakes, big ones. The Great Leap Forward led to the Great Famine. The Cultural Revolution went out of control and the ensuing mass hysteria led to violent hooliganism. Those were tragic episodes. But to demonize Mao and the CCP for those tragedies is too simplistic because China was a victim of historical circumstances which were beyond their control. For example, if there was no Cold War at the time, then Mao could have averted the Great Famine by asking America for help. Similarly, if America did not enter into the Vietnam War, then Mao would not have become paranoid about “counter-revolutionaries” in China. As it were, neither of the two above cases were true. And that triggered both tragedies.

It was a pleasure exchanging my views with you.

Have a good day!

Wodowsan

Your saying basically if a man kills his wife, and tortures and abuses in children. It is his family and no one should speak out and try to stop it. Only if he kills the neighbors wife we as outsiders have the right to protest against I and try to stop it? Doesn’t sound good for the wives and children of the world. It also sounds like a very feudal way of thinking which you say Mao got rid of.
I am talking about not judging the actions of individuals of today by the actions of their ancestors.
I am also talking about not idolizing monsters like Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pl Pot, or the Kims.
I am talking about learning from history and not supporting groups like the KKK, Nazis, Communists, or fascist (Imperial Japan for example) It does not matter what country or culture you are from we can all learn what not to do from all of them.
“An intelligent man learns from his mistakes, a wise man learns also from the mistakes of others.” – JW
As for Mao throwing out the old for the new China.
When it comes to land reform the KMT did a much better job at it on Taiwan without killing millions of landlords and actually gave the land to those that farmed the land, Unlike the communist blunder of communes where those that worked land still did not own their land, Instead of having a landlord as their master, they had the state as their master.
The KMT actually paid landlords for the land with shares in the country’s infrastructure, giving the wealthy the motivation to bring on the Taiwanese Miracle. An island not rich in natural resources like China, and as densely populated in some areas even more so than in China.
I assume, since you are such a loyal patriot to the party, you consider Taiwan Chinese. So the system there worked out a hell of a lot better than Mao’s communist policies. I have lived and worked in both China and Taiwan for many years. Taiwan got rid of the feudal Imperial Chinese system, but held onto the things that make Chinese tradition and culture one of the greatest in the world. The KMT were not saints, but they did finally peacefully let the people have a real voice in their government and a nation with very little censorship as there is in China.
Unlike my tenure in China, in Taiwan I was treated fairly and equally by my Chinese/Taiwanese employers and by the government. I was never cheated and lied to out months’ worth of salary as I was on mainland more than once.
So if you want to use “Chinese” culture as your defense, then how do you explain Taiwan? Or are you saying Taiwan is not part of China? How do you explain Hong Kong? Or are you also saying Hong Kong is also not part of China? You cannot have it both ways.
Mao ended the opium addiction by executing the opium addicts. The result was great, but I do not think most civilized people would agree the method used.. We could also end AIDS in the world if we used Mao method of ending drug addiction, we just need to execute everyone with HIV.
As for Sherman’s March to the Sea. They did bring the war to the southern population, they tore up railroad lines, they burned what they could not eat, but they did not “slaughter” the civilian population as you are saying. The deaths in the American Civil War were actually mostly among the soldiers. Disease being the number one killer. A result of throwing millions of men from rural spacious farms sudden into large military camps with unsanitary living conditions.
The second big killer of the American Civil War was the wounded dying from battlefield wounds due to the lack of antibiotics at the time. The third cause of death was soldiers being killed on the battlefield. There was in comparison to 20th century warfare, very few civilians killed in the American Civil War. And the Union did not kill by the millions after the war was won, unlike the Communist did in Stalin’s Russia, Pol Pot’s Kampuchea, Ho Min’s Vietnam, or Mao’s China. A unfortunate outcome of “class struggle.” murdering those you defeated in war.
In comparison, the Battle of Gettysburg saw 50,000 deaths in only three days, America lost that same number in twelve years of war in Vietnam, and China saw that many death in one month fighting Vietnam in the Sino-Vietnamese Conflict of 1979. Yet at Gettysburg with so many killed in only three days, only one civilian was killed by a stray bullet that passed through two doors.
I am happy to at least hear you enjoyed our discussion. And thank you for not making any personal or racist attacks in your last reply. You have given me hope in humanity.

sfphoto1

You omitted the 228 Incident wherein tens of thousands of native Taiwanese who resisted the KMT were murdered by Chiang Kai Shek. Despite being “Nationalists” in name, the KMT under Chiang were actually Fascists in reality. So if you want to condemn the CCP, you should do the same for the KMT. The fact that you praised the KMT’s record in Taiwan while condemning the CCP’s record in China proves your ideological bias towards the CCP.

Let me use a different analogy. Suppose you’re sick and the doctor diagnoses you as having a terminal disease such as cancer. You have two choices: 1) continue taking medication and hope the cancer goes away, or 2) undergo surgery. The doctor tells you that going under the knife may or may not succeed in curing your cancer and that you may die as a result of losing a lot of blood.

Do you take the risk of surgery or do you take the risk of dying of cancer?

China was in desperate straits when Mao took over. If China had not been a victim of Western Imperialism or if the British did not force Opium onto the Chinese populace or if Sun Yat Sen’s Republic of China had succeeded after the 1911 Xinhai Revolution ended the Qing Dynasty, then Chiang would not have taken over the KMT and turned it into a Fascist organization with ties to gangsters.

As it were, Sun Yat Sen tried Democracy in China but It didn’t work.

Although he was elected as the first President of the Republic of China, he didn’t have the Army to force the Warlords to submit to his rule. That had to wait until Chiang took over and thus began the Chinese Civil War, first against the Warlords and later against the Communists. In Western political philosophy, this is what Hobbes would call a “state of nature”, an anarchic condition of lawlessness wherein every man is after every man, which inevitably leads to “summum malum” or the greatest evil of violent death. In the Leviathan, Hobbes argues the the State has the sovereign right to use force and violence to maintain the social order. Morality concerns itself with the question of Good vs Evil. But Hobbes argues that in a state of nature, there is no morality because it is a war of all against all:

“In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently, not culture of the earth, no navigation, nor the use of commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

In a state of nature where every man is after every man, War becomes a POLITICAL NECESSITY to achieve the greater good which is social order. Since War involves the use of force and violence including killing people, it becomes a NECESSARY EVIL. The same can be said for Revolutions whose POLITICAL PURPOSE is the establishment of a New Order after the destruction of the Old.

Using the American Revolution as an example, the American Revolutionaries waged the War of Independence to establish the American Republic. Thus, the War of Independence has a POLITICAL PURPOSE which was to liberate the original thirteen colonies from the rule of the British Monarch. Similarly, Abraham Lincoln had to save the union by waging the American Civil War. Using my analogy of cancer and surgery, Mao had to perform surgery on the Chinese body in order to remove the cancer which was feudalism. That entailed loss of lots of blood. Abraham Lincoln likewise had to perform surgery on the American body in order to remove the cancer which was slavery. That also also entailed loss of lots of blood. In both cases, violence was a POLITICAL NECESSITY.

“Your saying basically if a man kills his wife, and tortures and abuses in children. It is his family and no one should speak out and try to stop it. Only if he kills the neighbors wife we as outsiders have the right to protest against I and try to stop it? Doesn’t sound good for the wives and children of the world.”

Your above analogy with “domestic violence” is false because Wars and Revolutions requires the use of force and violence to achieve a POLITICAL PURPOSE and are thus a necessary evil while “domestic violence” means just that: violence for the sake of violence.

Wodowsan

I said they were not Saints. They also had Green Island for Political Prisoners. But they did finally really change and released their strange hold on power, and they did remove Chiang from their money. He is not worshipped and idolized in Taiwan, like the Mao cult idolizes Mao.
I recommend you read your own words. Because you are sounding more and more like the Imperial Japanese of the 1930’s that you clearly hate so much. You hatred is turning you into the monster you say you are against.
My point is it does not matter what race or nationality a monster is. We should not become the monsters ourselves in order to fight and defeat the monster. It is a problem the Americans are now facing with its war against the Islamic extremists. Do we become the enemy to defeat the enemy? By doing so I would argue the enemy has then won. I fear your attitudes and your bigotry and like of morals, you have become the Imperial Japanese, you just call it Imperial Chinese.
No nation is perfect, no man is perfect, there for no system of government is perfect. Government is a necessary evil, the less the better. China has improved since Mao because the government has loosened it stranglehold on its on people a bit. If it loosened it more so like they have on Taiwan and had in Hong Kong (even under the Imperialist British) The Mainland would be much better off. Not only for the Party members that rule the nation with oppressive fist, censorship, and rewriting history.

sfphoto1

You keep belaboring the point about the need for China to adopt Western values such as political freedom and liberal democracy as if such values are necessarily appropriate for China.

Let me try another example of a social institution in the Western World where the liberal values of freedom and democracy are not practiced: the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church believes that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ and as Head of Church is infallible. Furthermore, a lay Catholic can not exercise intellectual freedom but must believe Church dogma as the only religious Truth. That dogma is promulgated by the Church hierarchy which is authoritarian in nature and thus not subject to democratic rule by will of the majority. It should be obvious to anyone that the Catholic Church is not a democratic institution nor its lay members allowed intellectual freedom to seek the religious Truth. That’s why Martin Luther rebelled against the Catholic Church that started the Protestant movement.

You want me to accept your personal belief that it is good for the Chinese people to have political freedom and for China to have democracy. And yet at the same time, you deny me the intellectual freedom to disagree with that belief. You keep insisting that your belief is good for the Chinese people:

“Perhaps I am just a foolish “Lao-wai” that actually has much more faith in the Chinese people than you”

And that mine is not:

“I though am starting to think you actually do not trust and even fear your own people. You use the monsters of past (Western Imperialism and the Japanese) only as an excuse to keep your jackboot on the necks of your fellow Chinese.”

That’s the logical fallacy of Western neo-Liberalism, what Foucault would call “epistemological violence” which is an ideological justification for Western Imperialism.

It goes like this: What we have in the West is good for you and if you don’t like what we have, then you are wrong because we know what’s right for you.

You then resort to several logical fallacies such as your two statements below contradicting each other:

“Your argument to always blame the terrible imperialist was the same justification the Imperial Japanese used in the 1920’s and early 30’s. The only difference was there really was Western Imperialism at that time. I really think if you read what the Imperial Japanese were writing to justify their desire to dominate Asia, and just replaced the word Japan with China, you will see what they were saying was not much different than what is coming out of from your mouth and the righteous propaganda of Beijing today.”

In effect, what you’re saying is that China’s protest against Japanese Prime Minister Abe’s act in visiting the Yasukuni Shrine is only an excuse to “justify their desire to dominate Asia”. I’ve already pointed out that other countries besides China have protested against the recent moves by Japanese Prime Minister Abe in visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, such as the one from South Korea which does not qualify as “righteous propaganda of Beijing” because South Korea is a U.S. Ally. Again, this just appears to be your way of apologizing for past Japanese Militarism when you yourself wrote earlier that:

“If some Japanese idiot started to praise the Imperial Japanese I would condemn their position”

Japanese Prime Minister Abe paid homage to 14 convicted Class-A War Criminals enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine. Instead of condemning this act, you then proceed to apologize for Abe’s offensive act by dismissing my view and Beijing’s protest as “righteous propaganda”.

Then you made several ad hominen arguments by using unfounded innuendos against my alleged family ties to the CCP. Finally, you haven’t really addressed my counter-argument that Mao should be not linked to Hitler because their political acts were directed towards different ends, and that Emperor Hirohito should be the one held responsible for waging a Genocidal War based on a racist ideology that led to the Asian Holocaust.

Wodowsan

Your first argument that freedom is from the west and can not apply to China just doesn’t hold water.

If what you are saying was true why are the lives for the majority of people in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc., so much better than for those living in Communist one-party Asian nations? I guess you would rather live in North Korea than South Korea?

They are all none western nations with much more political freedom and much realer representative governments than the so called People’s Republic of China.

I would compare Mao to Hitler because he did and said many of the same things. Hitler and the Imperial Japanese also hid behind race and nationalism to justify their oppressive governments.

The Chinese government has just sent a Chinese lawyer (not a western lawyer) to prison for four years because he protested for an end of government corruption and openness about the wealth of the Party leadership and their families. I thought Xi was pushing for an end of corruption too? Or is his just getting rid of old to put his own cronies in positions of power?
Many sources on the story. Only one is American two are Chinese:

But instead of being concerned about one of your own fellow citizens you are more concerned about 14 dead Japanese out of 2,666, in a graveyard established in 1869?
You really cannot see how this issue is just a diversion to your own domestic injustices?
You said I made ad hominen (thanks for the Latin) arguments by using unfounded innuendos against you and your family ties to the Party, was I wrong? Are you telling me you do not personally benefit from the present regime in power?
How am I censoring your ideas? Am I not having a dialog with you? Freedom of Speech means hearing things you do not agree with. If you listen to only what you agree with it is not freedom of speech. Because I believe in freedom of speech I do not have the right to disagree with you and challenge your ideas?
You are clearly a educated and smart person. I just wish you could try to at least understand the other side. It does not mean you have to agree with me. But at least try to understand the other side. Which is why I did ask about you and your families connections. I asked to better understand where you are coming from.I at least understand that all Chinese are not the same and do not all think the same. If they did there wouldn’t be any political prisoners in China. If they did, the Party would not be threatened by freedom speech and a free independent press, internet, and education. If they did, they would not have a government censorship board for movies and television. The fact they fear other ideas and arrest those that express those opposing opinions proves to me once again they support an unjust system. Just like Hitler, Stalin, and the Imperial Japanese did to their own people.

Besides isn’t communism itself from the West? Do you see me supporting that ideology because it is western? Even with so called “Chinese characteristics” it is still rooted in the ideologies of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin all of whom were Europeans, not Chinese, and not even Asians. Yet that is what Mao modeled his government after. Just because an idea is from the west I do not mindlessly think it is a good idea.
Besides my studies of history I do have loved ones and friends, that are Chinese, that have been brought in by the Chinese Secret Police for expressing their opinions. Some even just because of their associations with those that have been critical of Chinese government policies.
You are so concerned about the injustices of the past, Imperial Japan and Western Imperialism, yet you seem not to care about the gross injustices happening in your own backyard. Because I really do not think you care little for you fellow citizens as long as you and yours have yours. “Don’t look here at what we are doing to you now, Look over there at what those terrible Japanese Devils grandparents did over 70 years ago.”
But instead of really understand what I am trying to say to you, keep all your racist hate, and just dismiss me as another foolish, stupid, arrogant, cultural imperialist, Lao-wai, or foreign devil.

Alexander

Mao made a big mistake by taking too many farmers and making them into industrial workers, which caused a mass food shortage and led to millions starving to death. He shouldn’t be labeled as a tyrant for this, but simply as a leader who made some bad decisions. There is a big difference between someone who purposely sets-up camps to burn people alive and someone who made bad reforms which led to starvation. But of course since Mao was a communist we must paint everything he did in a negative light by saying he killed millions of people, while many African free-market countries with people starving to death, we simply say they are having an unfortunate famine and we must give support the UN to give them food aid right away.

ElectricTurtle

Which part of Mao’s making a) no effort to stop murders and b) an active effort to prevent others from stopping murders did you not understand? That is immoral no matter what. And even if you focus on the mere ‘mistakes’ of policy such as you speak of, a policy that kills millions negligently should be condemned and its instigator similarly condemned. Nobody venerates Africans who fuck up, they might not be condemned by the West as loudly as the West condemns Mao, but then there are never as many people involved, nor are they popular with their own people after generations.

Alexander

So when Mao’s officials take him to a field that they have set-up that appears to be growing lots of crops and they tell him how well the country is doing because they want him to think everything is going well because they are a bunch of “yes men” and were too afraid of failing that they didn’t want him to see the reality of the situation that all of a sudden equates to the same thing as a murderer on the same level as Ted Bundy, the Lockerbie Bombers or SS guards? No doubt he was a bad leader, but to place him on the same level as murderers doesn’t seem to equate. Its not like he was standing right there next to the people while they were hurting others. That’s like saying that President George Washington was responsible for the poor treatment of slaves in America….. yeah right.

Paul Schoe

If your read more about Mao, for example in the very detailed book from his personal doctor, you will see that Mao was not only misled by the people around him but that he himself schemed in many ways to stay in power, had rivals sent to camps or murdered, deliberately refused to intervene on behalf of even people who had been loyal to him for decades, saw the deadth of millions as a simple price to improve the live of tens of millions, thanked Japan for the destruction they had bought to China because it helped his communist cause and eventually build a regime around him that was similar to that of Hitler in the sense that everybody was so terified of him, that nobody dared to speak to truth.

To call that simply “a leader who made some bad decission” might be a bit oversimplifying the directions that he personally gave during those more then 20 years.

Alexander

Why would his medical doctor know about his political ambitions? Does your medical doctor know about what exactly you do and think at work? There is a lot of myth and made-up stories about absolute leaders. It is obvious to see the exaggeration just by how you said “Mao thanked Japan”. If you seriously thought he was thanking them in a sincere and loving manner, then perhaps you are taking it too literally rather than seeing it in a different manner like satirically. Again, Mao although he made many bad decisions is painted as some guy like Nero, yet, Andrew Jackson, yeah the guy on the $20 US note, was responsible for ethnic cleansing of Native Americans. No one calls him out or has made an effort to remove him from the $20 bill, because he was an AMERICAN President and therefore that must equate to freedom and liberty so the Western media and governments want us to think….

Paul Schoe

Before dismissing the opinion of Mao’s personal physician, it might be worth to read a little bit more about him. He was litterally his ‘personal’ physician, around and near Mao almost every day and on almost every trip.
Due to the relationship of the two, Mao often asked him for opnions about visitors, let him read and comment on proposals that Moa prepared, discussed his love life and even sent him on investigation trips when he wanted to know information from somebody who he trusted more then other people around him.

If you are comparing the relationship that Mao had with his ‘personal’ physician with the relationship that you have with your doctor (“does your doctor know what you do and think?“) then either you have the funds to have a doctor around you 24/7 or you are not aware of the intimicay of such relationships. At least I couldn’t afford such a relationship with my doctor.

Alexander

Wrote a book about it… always a nice way to make a couple of extra bucks……. hint hint. So then why didn’t Edgar Snow say anything like that about Mao. He had nothing to lose by speaking-up especially when he was outside China.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Dr. Li Zhisui has coloured some of his experiences, or had a ‘coloured’ memory when he wrote these memoirs. After all he was in Hong Kong when he wrote it ( if I remember well) and in an environment where criticism of Mao was maybe not en-vogue but certainly accepted or even appreciated.

But that does not change the gist of his description of Mao, of Mao’s actions, and of Mao’s deliberations. It is an attitude that is confirmed in several other (well researched) books about Mao as well, for example the recent “Mao: The Unknown Story” from Jun Chang & Jon Halliday.

Each of those books is also critized by others, but together they certainly paint a picture not of an innocent idealist who was misled by his senior staff, but of a scheming person who was often quite aware of the effect of his actions, who was verocious when dealing with anybody that he perceived as unloyal, and who often refused to come to the rescue of innocent people.

It is one thing to be misled by your senior staff when they show you fields full of happily working people, while behind the scene people are starving from hunger, it is quite another to accept millions of deaths because it will help you to create an ‘idealistic’ society.

Germandude

As a leader, your responsibility is to have people below you that tell you how things are going so that you can base your actions on reality. If you surround yourself with asslickers that only tell you about rainbows and gold-rivers out of fear of repression, I think it’s fair to say that you failed competely in your role.
Furthermore, Mao knew that he screwed up but didn’t change no more.
I personally don’t put Mao on the same level as Hitler (1) & Stalin (2), but he comes in a close 3rd on the list of “Assholes in history”.

Alexander

I would put Nero as 2nd. I would put Pol Pot as third. I would put the Hutus responsible for the Rwandan Genocide ahead of Mao on the list. Perhaps Kim Jong Il should also be ahead of Mao? What about Qin Shi Huang should he be ahead of Mao in the list? And what about the Ottoman leaders like the ones responsible for the Armenian Genocide.

Dr Sun

Damn sounds just like Bush and Obama, surrounded by ass-lickers, or is the politicians in the west kissing the investors/ financiers arse, cant quiet figure out which way it is.

Germandude

Ever heard of: Láodòng Gǎizào (勞動改造/劳动改造) ?

Alexander

Yes, they have that in the United States also. They are called inmate trusties. They are fed horrible food which is 1000x worse than school cafeteria food or airplane food and they only give them enough to survive but not enough to feel full. Also you only get to go outside for one hour each day weather permitting. If you misbehave you get put into lockdown which is a small room about 6 square meters with a hard bed and a suicide blanket and metal toilet which flushes only 2x per hour and you stay in there for at least 7 days straight if not longer with a shower once every 2 days. Convicted criminals have to work and don’t get paid for it. Pretty much it is slavery. So what were you saying about China…….

miomeinmio

You clearly have an adgenda. Which is fine.

But you need to get some more facts under your belt so you can actually defend your position. Your arguments are paper thin.

Alexander

Shut-up and stop butting in, I was discussing this with another person here. I don’t know you and I don’t know why you want to target me all of a sudden. You blurt out some comments but you don’t give specific details to what you disagree with. I think you are just trying to get points or maybe you are being overprotective of one of the cocks you suck on here. Anyways, stop bothering me already.

miomeinmio

Sure, how rude of me, I’ll butt out of the conversation you’re having with five people on a public forum, no problem. And yes, I did go back up and count.

I’ll get back to my cock-sucking, you misogynist pig. There, is that clear enough for you?

Alexander

Oh, I thought it might have been something important…. I’ll go back to sitting on the toilet.

Edward_Crowley

The US still has slaved labour, chain gangs, stuff like that you mean? I’d expect it in one or two of those steamy southern states perhaps and even then not in the big cities….but thanks, interesting post.

Alexander

Yes, that’s true. Many people think that slavery was completely abolished but the 14th Amendment reads that slavery is permitted as punishment for convicted criminals.

Edward_Crowley

I’ll look on wiki as to which states retain labour as a punishment, cheers.

Alexander

Lets not do this back and forth for hours again. I think we both have other things to do.

Dr Sun

unfortunately he did both , which starved millions to death and executed hundreds of thousands.

Alexander

A fair and neutral comment that isn’t insulting or overcritical of others. Wow, thank you, nice to see someone is sensible around here.

Edward_Crowley

I mentioned your point about the farmers and the rape of the countryside and environment while in China, one girl agreed with me, another fat git of a male student came out with the usual Mao is a hero line, you are a laowai, you don’t understand China etc etc etc……..really gets me when they use that we can’t understand China, it is not some arcane science or esoteric subject, anyone who is good at languages, interested in history, can understand it pretty well, reading is perhaps a good point……

Alexander

Thanks for the fair and neutral comment, I appreciate it. I can sympathize with what you mentioned. You don’t have to have Chinese ancestry/DNA to know Chinese history well. A good way to reverse it is to start talking about the Roman Empire or the Industrial Revolution etc etc, use their same logic/argument, then they will maybe realize how ridiculous it is to actually think in that manner.

Dr Sun

incorrect , it was forced collective farming and then giving the produce to Russia (debt payment) that caused millions to starve to death

Alexander

We’re already passed this discussion, it was done with a week ago. Also that information I looked-up it was from an academic source not from my ass. It amazes me how many people on the discussion board seem to think they are an authority on all these subjects like they have a PhD from Harvard, Cambridge or TsingHua University in all these topics.

YourSupremeCommander

If I had joined a gang who tourtured, displaced and killed millions of people… getting away with it till I am about to die. THEN, I come out to cry a river on TV and say I am sorry about what I had done… Does this erase all my sins?

WRONG BITCH, YOU ARE STILL A CRIMINAL!

nqk123

I came across this article recently. a little piece that remind people how shitty the current Chinese government still is. I believes that the Chinese dream for most Chinese is similar to the American dream.

“I Have a Dream, A Chinese Dream”

Inspired by Xi Jinping’s Chinese Dream, a Chinese commentator shares his own hopes for the world

By Li Zhenyu

January 12, 2014

Life is full of dreams. They add meaning and inspire us to pursue a better
future. A life without dreams is like a garden without flowers.

In China, as more people than ever before feel able to pursue their
dreams, President Xi Jinping took office with a fresh slogan: the
Chinese Dream. Realizing this dream for more than 1.3 billion people
will go down in history as one of mankind’s greatest achievements.
Inspired by this national Chinese Dream, more and more Chinese nationals
have begun to chase their own dreams.

I have a dream, too. It is one that is deeply rooted in the Chinese
Dream, a dream of an equal, peaceful and more prosperous world, and a
dream that a great civilization will be renewed.

I dream that one day this world will evolve into a more civilized
oasis where all men — whatever their ethnicity — are created equal.

I dream that one day Chinese people or immigrants will be able to
walk the streets of the West without being viewed as racial inferiors.

I dream that one day environmentally harmful heavy industry will no
longer be transferred to China from the West, and that all people in
China will be able to breathe the air as clean and fresh as that in the
developed world.

I dream that one day the phrase “Made in China” will no longer be
perceived as cheap and low-end, and the perennial landscape in which
Western countries get the credit while Chinese workers do the dirty
manufacturing work will change.

I dream that my old grandmother will live to see the day when senior
citizens in emerging countries can have access to the same medical
resources and receive the same level of medical care as those in the
developed world.

I dream that one day every piece of land that inherently belongs to China will return to the embrace of its motherland.

I dream that the Chinese people will one day fully recover from the
trauma of the “century of national humiliation,” when China was bullied
at the hands of Western and Japanese invaders, and the Middle Kingdom
will restore its former glory.

Not all people can see their dreams come true. But I hope my dream
will, because it is a dream deeply rooted in the Chinese Dream; because
in a globalized world, by rejuvenating China, the Chinese Dream benefits
the entire world.

In these last 30 years or so, China has made dramatic progress. The
world’s largest and most dynamic developing economy has shared the
dividends of its amazing growth with the rest of the world. In the next
decade, the world will witness more of the same.

By working together and supporting each other, the Chinese Dream will
harmonize with the dreams of the rest of the world, creating a
beautiful symphony of prosperity.

By strengthening unity and trust, China and the rest of the world can
come together and fulfill the dream of enduring peace and shared
prosperity.

That’s my dream.

Now, it’s time for action. We have work to do.

The author, Li Zhenyu, is The Diplomat’s contributing columnist and editor-in-chief of the business channel at the People’s Daily Online in China. This is a slightly edited version of a piece originally published in the People’s Daily Online, December 31, 2013 edition.

Paul Schoe

When i saw the position of the author, i understood more of the language that he used in his ‘dream’.

I am a bit worried about the “every piece of land that inherently belongs to China “, dream. That abodes never ending tension with other parties in the region. It is almost litterally the same as the arguments used as the pretext for hundreds of territory wars that have taken place anywhere in the world . Not a pleasant foresight to see such dreams mentioned in a growing power.

nqk123

it start out ok, then it was like wtf. i had a good laugh

Cameron

“I dream that one day Chinese people or immigrants will be able to
walk the streets of the West without being viewed as racial inferiors.”

Don’t you love the poor me attitude? Nobody views Chinese people as “racial inferiors” (and that’s buying into the ignorant notion that there is a Chinese race, which of course there isn’t, even if you buy into the socially accepted yet scientifically hollow black, white, asian trinity).
A habit perhaps worth borrowing from Western cultures however, is the tendency to see people not as racial entities with inbuilt, un changeable characteristics,but as autonomous individuals. We can therefore judge people according to their behavior.

sfphoto1

Cameron: “A habit perhaps worth borrowing from Western cultures however, is the tendency to see people not as racial entities with inbuilt, unchangeable characteristics, but as autonomous individuals. We can therefore judge people according to their behavior.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Nelson Mandela: “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

Let’s give credit where credit is due. I’m sure Western culture was changed by both of these men. Don’t you agree?

sfphoto1

So, nqk123, could you please tell me what you find “shitty” in the article.

“I believes that the real Chinese dream for most Chinese are similar to the American dream.”

So are you saying that most Chinese want China to build up its military so it bomb foreign countries?

nqk123

do you even know what the American dream is? Here is the American dream: opportunity for prosperity and success, and an upward social mobility achieved through hard work. tell me, is this not the dream of any Chinese or any others. here 50 cent

sfphoto1

I am from San Francisco, California.

I know people who bought houses. They took out loans. But they lost their homes. Because the housing market collapsed. Is that the American Dream?

Then they lost their jobs. Because their company outsourced their jobs to China. Is that the American Dream?

Then they lost their savings. Because the stock market collapsed. Is that the American Dream?

Every time I go back to visit America, the land of the free and home of the brave, I see despair, misery, fear…

i notice these trend too. pretending to be other ethnic to bash other nations. mostly Japanese/Filipino against US

sfphoto1

I can send you an email of my California Driver’s License as proof.

nqk123

no thank, i can fake one easily. good bye

sfphoto1

Can’t you see the satire?

sfphoto1

No, I am not wumao but huaquiao. I used to live in Mountain View, California, close to its main street called Castro. There’s a Caltrain depot right off Castro between El Camino Real and Highway 101.

nqk123

i am certain that you are a wumao

Dr Sun

more likely they outsourced to India, but get your point.

sfphoto1

But with the heavily-indebted consumer-driven economy of the Western World about to collapse, Western corporations would have to relocate to China and not just outsource to India.

Dr Sun

they relocated to Indonesia, Bangladesh, India,etc not to just China, look inside your nike, north face, timberland, etc clothes ,where were they were made, the big brands did not move to china.
look at where all the call centres are, not in China.

I know you guys want to blame China, but globalization is not controlled by China, its controlled by your own countrymen, for their maximum profit.

sfphoto1

Agree. Didn’t mean to blame China. But I was just pointing out that Western corporations would have to realign their global brands to target the Chinese market which is set to become larger than the entire Western World combined.

Also, Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, etc. are becoming the preferred locations for the sweatshop factories that China no longer wants. As for call centers, Western brands would have to setup e-commerce centers in China to serve the Chinese market, don’t they?

Lastly, the Western media wants to blame China for the rapacious greed of Western corporations who as you’ve correctly pointed out are the ones guilty of outsourcing jobs to developing countries to 1) lower their costs and 2) evade taxes.

A Gawd Dang Mongolian

I think that came with the cult of personality he built. He got help from the same people who built up Stalin in Russia, and turned the Kim family into living gods among the North Koreans.

Kinda hard to think differently when you were told all your life how correct one person was(even when it is completely wrong)

Dr Sun

Agreed look at all the morons that grew thinking Margaret Thatcher the Kennedy’s or Nixon had it right ????

Edward_Crowley

Difference is those people WERE democratically ELECTED!!!! You can split hairs all you want, Mao came to power by the barrel of a gun, and made sure only his FAT self and the party had all the GUNS!!! After Thatcher and John Major, the UK people voted in Tony B Liar and what a big mistake that was, I know because I was living in the UK at the time. Agreeing to invade iraq, making it harder for students and the unemployed………..

Dr Sun

so the electorate are/ where fucking stupid, whats your point., except to prove democracy is not working either ?

Edward_Crowley

Democracy does work, especially in smaller countries, very well indeed. The problem is the USA is never really 1 country, nor has it ever been. Corruption in the USA yes, but miniscule compared to China.

Dr Sun

really, which country caused the latest global recession, not cuba I suspect.

Edward_Crowley

Cuba, what are you on about? Are you a paid shill gambit here?

Dr Sun

no, i talk shit to shit heads for free, you ?

Edward_Crowley

my dear confucian boy, i do not go in for fetishes, shitting on heads, all very hitleresque. I would however spurt my man yoghurt onto the faces of SOME female posters. Also you and rick in china, can eat the notion that I give a flying fuck, as I want to eat a can of HEATED baked beans more than anything, I am famished……..

Dr Sun

thank you for sharing that , but your man yogurt is better shared with the likes of some of your fellow China hating trolls

Edward_Crowley

I don’t hate China, I merely hate a country that shoots itself in the foot, clear?

Paul Schoe

At least you know where your loyalties must be in a public forum.
Not must different then from in that time, where even sarcasm was followed as instructions (or used as protection).

Cameron

Perhaps we shouldn’t be too hard on her. She acted despicably as a youth, but the young are supposed to be able to trust the old for direction and guidance. Her figures of authority, her role models, turned her into a violent psychopath. At least, as an adult herself, she is finally taking the correct action, although if she is truly sorry, perhaps she could continue to dedicate her life to educating young people about the dangers of extremism and unquestioning obedience to authority – something sorely lacking in her own upbringing.

Cameron

I wonder has there ever been a clearer example of mass hysteria and an entire nation of people losing their shit as in the cultural revolution?
The scary thing is that I fear that Chinese people are still largely controlled by the government. Ask yourself a simple question, the next time China goes to war – as at some point it will – how will objectors be treated? Dissenting opinion on issues of national importance is barely more tolerated now than it was in 1989.

waihang

Have to say this is an extraordinary happening in the middle kingdom and a good one sending out signals in the right direction, I think it’s a matter of a carefully chosen point in time she could feel safe enough and step forward telling and apologize for the cruelties during the CR.

I would speculate that it might have to do with Big Xi getting curbs on the Jiang Zeming CCP party faction, Bo Xilai is one nail in the JZM faction coffin, hence, only few years earlier this might not have been possible.

Zappa Frank

Vladimir Voinvich in “monumental propaganda”, talking about communism and how people followed Stalin and other leader who gave fault to previous leaders, with internal fights, change of leadership, who was a hero before became a villain, and so on he said something like:
“now you would think that they were naive, they were just stupid to so blindly follow someone and than change ideas immidiatly after, but it’s not, it happend, it happen now and it will happen again”..
just to say that we are not any better of people who followed Mao, we are just from different time and place, but in their shoes we would likely have done the same things

LaoShu

They were already in China.. and it was the foreign evil americans who helped to liberate ..

Dr Sun

in fact it was the British,Australians Indians, Thai,Nepalese etc plus the Americans who helped to supply the Chinese through the roads into Yunnan.

But I know you yanks like to believe you won WWII all on your lomesome

miomeinmio

Not quite, but I’m sure that’s what they’re putting in the textbooks.

miomeinmio

So much hate from these Netizens! I hope they never end up in that type of situation, like the Cultural Revolution, they might have to eat crow!

Dr Sun

really ?

mr.wiener

Certainly, sitting back and letting the nationalist exhaust themselves fighting the Japanese, then stroll back in and pick up the pieces. Cynical , but brilliant.

Dr Sun

that’s not true and you know it.

ESL Ninja

I bet she blew him

mr.wiener

Song of the article [somewhat belatedly]
Billy Bragg: “Waiting for the great leap forward”.

murlocs gurgle

Unfortunately, Red Guard agitation propaganda is alive and well in New York’s Chinatown. They’ve never been confronted with equal verbosity and precise responses so they’ve just gotten stronger and this is really a problem with traditional Chinese in that they are too correct and conservative to speak out and against misbehavior.

Areno

I am chinese too but when you read such articles on the cultural revolution and the great leap forward, the sufferings, killings, injustice and tens of millions of lives lost through murders, hunger and deprivations, it makes protest of Japanese actions in Nanjing and the rest of China like a joke.

Jobjed

What others do to you is amplified a million times over what you do to yourself. That applies to every country in the world. The US was pissed when 3000 were killed by foreigners in 9/11 and yet in 2010, almost 15000 were murdered across the country. When the 3000 dead of 9/11 is contrasted with the 15000 murder victims, by your logic, it’s also “like a joke”.

sfphoto1

Areno, I am Japanese and I know how you feel. That’s why I always make it a point to pay a visit to the Yasukuni Shrine to honor my grandfather who ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was a heroic man because he bombed those Yanks in their sleep. Banzai!

Probotector

…and then he was vapourised at Nagasaki.

Herp derp.

sfphoto1

I am not a Jap, can’t you see the satire?

Probotector

Ah, I see, you were just trolling. Good one, here’s a golf clap for ya!

Alex Dương

It’s dishonest of you to insinuate that I said or suggested that “France sucked more because they fell in six weeks.” Every time I mentioned the Battle of France, I did so to give a contrast. I always mentioned the fact (yes, fact) that in 1937, France was much stronger than China was.

There’s no disputing that. Back then, France was a global imperial power with colonies in Africa and Asia. China didn’t even have full sovereignty within her own borders. I can’t give a stronger contrast than that.

Really, it amazes me that so many of you feel the need to “defend” France. I never said the French sucked, and I never mocked or ridiculed the French. All I did was express my disagreement that the Second Sino-Japanese War was one-sided by mentioning the Battle of France as a contrast: a much stronger nation fell in six weeks whereas a much weaker nation held on almost alone for nearly 4.5 years.

What’s even funnier is that I don’t think any of you are French. Germandude is, well, German, and “Frank” said he’s Italian. Yet, all of you misunderstood my contrast as a bash on France. All of you rose to “defend” a country that wasn’t even bashed. Gee, I hope now you people understand how Chinese netizens probably feel when China IS actually bashed.

Germandude

Thank you very much Rick! At least you understand exactly what I mean and why I think comparing China and France in this case is just plain wrong.
I read my comments over several times and was already wondering if my posts sucked so much that my message doesn’t come along. You proved otherwise.

Edward_Crowley

I think you need to need about the reichstag fire as to how hitler got to power. What bush jr did is far smaller in magnitude.

Dr Sun

tell that to Iraq or Afganistan

Edward_Crowley

Tell that to Taiwan and Xinjiang (East Turkestan)

Dr Sun

what happen in Taiwan, I slept most of yesterday did I miss something ???

Edward_Crowley

Not that I know of?

Jimney Cricket

There is way too much Mao bashing. Face it, Chinese people enjoyed killing and torturing each other. They like to cheat each other and think they are so smart about it. By the way, The Red Guard were nothing like the Hitler Youth. The Hitler Youth travelled around the country helping communities. The Red Guard terrorized them.

Now that you know what the Japanese Kempeitai did to your grandfather, you should go back home to your HDB flat and ask your grandmother if she ever served the Imperial Japanese Army as a “Comfort Woman”.

Oh, I didn’t know you are the product of kempetai gang rape. No wonder you hate japanese so much. But who knows, your grandma and mother may be having a real good time with them. Anyway my sympathy goes to you and your family (your grandma as well). :P

And you Chinese shit are honoring Mao, print his face in your money. Compare to Japanese, they ain’t anything.

sfphoto1

One last thing, does the name “Tan Kah Kee” ring a bell?
I don’t want to bore you with “Chinese shit” but at least you should know something about the man who founded 华侨中学 and 南洋大学 in Singapore and 厦门大学.in China.

And congratulations! You’re now an Asian apologist for Japanese Militarism.

Ivan Teo

You already bore me with all those shot. Congratulations! You’re now an Chinki apologist for Hairy Mao.

sfphoto1

Well, good luck to you then. Bye.

Ivan Teo

Now be a good girl and go back home to your HDB flat. Ask your grandmother what “Sook Ching” means. That way, you would know what the Japanese Kempeitai did to your grandfather, you idiot.

Dr Sun

the free masons ( electoral college) gave it to him with the supreme court (of free masons) backing.

Dr Sun

that’s rubbish and I’m no supporter of Mao, but I am is a supporter of correct history and what you say is not correct.

Vernon Alarcon

We will see if all you bleeding hearts of the “enlightened” generation do something good NOW like solve the toxic water and air pollution problem. Or would you rather just complain about things while you hide behind your internet connection at home.

sfphoto1

西方骗子. You obviously have been drinking too much kool-aid from Western propagandists. China has lifted more people out of poverty in less time than all of the Western World combined. Median income $500? Where did you get that sh-t? Are you talking per capita income? Or disposable income? Or PPP income? China has half of the world’s high speed trains. Is that a Third World country? Health care is an atrocity? It is widely available at low cost compared to the blatant rip-off in Western Societies. And speak for yourself regarding how Chinese view Mao who is the only reason why China is not a puppet State of the West.

sfphoto1

Ahh…go ahead and move to Taiwan, HK and Macau then.

sfphoto1

What’s so great about Taiwan, HK, Macau? Do you like them because they make you feel “superior”? Many Westerners like Taiwan because it is just a Western puppet while HK and Macau are ex-colonies. What “progress” are you referring to? Politically, Taiwan, HK and Macau are WORSE OFF than Third World countries, behaving like children under the care of the West. The same is true for Germany and Japan, both puppet States of the Anglo-Saxon-led West.

So you spent time in the PRC and can’t stand semi-literate migrant workers spitting in the streets. Or maybe you find the mainland Chinese to be too aggressive and lacking in “manners”. Or maybe they’re too poor to afford Western brands.

Who cares?

They’re citizens of the People’s Republic of China founded by Mao. And that’s the only reason why China is not a puppet State of the West today.

If you can’t stand that, that’s too bad.

1LTLos

This is the same crap that is stirred up around the incompetent and petulant Obscumbo the so-called USA president with questionable credibility threatening to act unilaterally without the American Congress — It is our Dark period in the USA that
the personality cult supportive of Soros the two disgraceful and criminal Clintons, Obscumbo and several others is such that their removal and incarceration is hindered —